A new poll in the days after immigration raids in the Los Angeles area − and the protests around the country that followed − shows a divide among Americans over who should be deported and how immigration laws should be enforced.
Regardless of their politics, all Americans strongly agree that people who are in the country illegally and have committed violent crimes should be deported, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll.
Nearly all Republicans and 83% of Democrats said in the poll taken June 6-9 that violent offenders should be deported. The gap grows much wider, though, when the 1,533 U.S. citizens were asked about five other situations of people in America illegally.
The most pronounced split − 57 percentage points − was over whether people who committed nonviolent crimes should be deported. Overall, Americans were almost evenly divided.
Nearly one-third of Republicans believe anyone in the United States illegally should be deported regardless of circumstances, a view shared by only a small fraction of Democrats.
