Over 80% of Americans consider illegal immigration a “serious” problem, according to a new survey. A Monmouth University poll released on Monday found that a total of 84% of American voters consider illegal immigration to be a serious issue, including 61% who consider it “very serious.” Surprisingly, 41% of Democrats now consider illegal immigration a “very serious” issue, up from 26% in 2019. A combined total of only 15% responded that illegal immigration is not a serious problem.
Additionally, the poll found that a majority (61%, up 10 points from 2019) of respondents think illegal immigrants should be made to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims are processed, about a third (32%) think illegal immigrants are more likely to commit violent crimes than American citizens, and a surprising 53% favor building a wall at the nation’s southern border.
Monmouth University noted, “A majority of Americans support building a border wall for the first time since Monmouth started asking this question in 2015. … Concern about illegal immigration has increased among all partisan groups.” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, added, “Illegal immigration has taken center stage as a defining issue this presidential election year. Other Monmouth polling found this to be Biden’s weakest policy area, including among his fellow Democrats.”
This comes as President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are both planning visits to the U.S.-Mexico border this week. Both candidates will visit Texas on Thursday, with Biden going to Brownsville and Trump going to Eagle Pass. The visit will be only Biden’s second since taking office at the beginning of 2021. His first visit was to El Paso in January of 2023 and the president was sharply criticized for not visiting the border sooner. A recent Gallup poll reported that Biden’s withering job approval rating — hovering at 38%, one point above his all-time low — is largely due to his mismanagement of illegal immigration and the southern border.
According to a report released last month by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Biden administration is responsible for allowing over six million illegal immigrants into the U.S. as of October, including over three million in 2023 alone. That’s not counting the record 302,000 illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. in December. Millions of those illegal immigrants were knowingly allowed into the country via the “parole” loophole in immigration law, according to the CBO.
The Biden administration’s exploitation of the “parole” loophole has sparked renewed backlash in the wake of the murder of 22-year-old Laken Riley. The nursing student’s body was discovered in Athens, Georgia last week after she had not returned from an early morning run. Police arrested Venezuelan Jose Antonio Ibarra and charged him with Riley’s murder. Ibarra had been released into the U.S. in 2022 via the Biden administration’s “parole pipeline.” He should have been deported in September, according to Department of Homeland Security sources who spoke to Breitbart News, after he was arrested in Queens, New York, for injuring a minor.
Ibarra was shielded from deportation due to the city’s “sanctuary” laws, which protect illegal immigrants from being deported. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, announced in a townhall event on Monday that he wanted to adjust the city’s “sanctuary” laws. “For those who are committing crimes, we need to modify the sanctuary city law that if you commit a felony or a violent act, we should be able to turn you over to ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and have you deported,” Adams declared.
However, Mayor Kelly Girtz (D) of Athens, Georgia refused to condemn a resolution he signed in 2019 to protect “undocumented” immigrants during a Monday press conference. Girtz admitted that “many of the aspects that are ascribed to sanctuary cities are things that are disallowed by Georgia law,” but also “cautioned against conflating immigration and crime…” When Athens residents responded with calls for the mayor to resign, labeling him “a criminal” with “blood on your hands,” Girtz reportedly tried to remove non-reporters from the room.
Yet another Democrat, Representative Katie Porter (Calif.), also defended illegal immigration. “I think when a horrible tragedy like this happens, I think whenever we’re dealing with violent crime, there is a sense of outrage, of sadness and loss,” Porter said in a Monday CNN appearance. “But I think the important thing to focus on is any one instance shouldn’t shape our overall immigration policy, which has so many different facets, including economic choices about what workers to allow in and how to create prosperity in America.” She added that it’s “important … to recognize how all the other parts of immigration policy fit together.”
According to an Axios report earlier this month, Biden has largely ignored the surging border crisis, passing the issue off to “infighting” administration officials and staffers and losing his temper at advisors who broach the subject.
S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.
