Biden ignoring immigration issues, says new poll

Voters seek balanced solutions that include both border security and pathways to citizenship and legal status for immigrants

A majority of voters in key swing states are critical of President Joe Biden’s handling of immigration problem saying he is ignoring key immigration issues, according to a new survey from a Democratic polling firm.

As many as 58% of voters in seven key Electoral College battleground states disapprove of how the president is handling immigration, compared with 32% who approve, according to a new swing-state poll from Global Strategy Group as reported by Politico.

And a majority of voters surveyed, at 52%, believe Biden is ignoring problems at the border, while 50% said the president is ignoring the situation around undocumented immigrants.

Read: As Biden completes one year, Indian legal dreamers demand relief (January 18, 2022)

Republicans talk more about immigration than Democrats, and they are trusted more to handle the issue, according to the poll.

Both parties get low marks for how they are handling immigration, but Democrats face greater criticism because voters don’t know where the party falls on the issue.

About 39% of voters trust Biden and Democrats in Congress more on the immigration issue, while 47% said they trust Republican lawmakers more.

The new poll — conducted on behalf of immigrant advocacy group Immigration Hub and Voto Latino, a political organization focused on Latino voter turnout — comes three weeks before the administration plans to end Title 42, the Trump-era policy that has allowed border agents to immediately expel millions of migrants on public health grounds for the past three years.

“The fact is that in the 820 days since he sent Congress a comprehensive immigration reform bill, President Biden has taken unprecedented action to expand lawful immigration pathways, limit unlawful immigration, protect Dreamers and farmworkers, and increase border security,” White House spokesperson Abdullah Hasan said in a statement.

“Because of this administration’s work, unlawful immigration is down, legal immigration is up, we’ve got record funds for border security, and thousands of smugglers are now off the streets.”

Read: Did Biden fail to live up to his promise to immigrant communities? (December 24, 2021)

More than eight-in-10 voters in the poll — 82% — believe the immigration system is broken, and they want to see both enhanced border security and policies that provide a pathway to citizenship, such as work permits for Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children, and Temporary Protected Status for other migrants.

Over 65% of respondents have a positive view of “modernizing and improving the physical infrastructure at high-volume ports of entry to enhance screening and processing,” while 76% want Dreamers and other undocumented immigrants residing in the US to gain legal status if certain requirements are met, including background checks. about 64% of voters back the Biden administration using its TPS authority.

“Voters disapprove of the job both parties are doing on immigration because they see the system as deeply broken and in desperate need of a fix,” said Nick Gourevitch, partner and managing director at Global Strategy Group.

“Recent polling shows voters clearly want Washington to act with solutions that are balanced — that include both border security and pathways to citizenship and legal status for Dreamers and other immigrants.”

The online poll surveyed 1,201 likely 2024 general election voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin between April 4-11. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.8 points.