Most Americans, including a majority of Republicans and right-leaning independents, agree that undocumented immigrants should be allowed to legally remain in the United States, as long as they can meet certain criteria, a new Pew Research Center poll released Monday reveals.
According to the poll of 4,175 people, conducted from July 22-Aug. 4 and carrying a margin of error of 1.9 percentage points, 72% of Americans favor allowing immigrants to stay.
The numbers were down slightly from a similar study in March 2017, when 77% of Americans were in favor.
The current numbers show 27% of the respondents oppose finding a way to allow undocumented immigrants to achieve legal status, and marked changing views with Republicans:
- 54% of Republicans or GOP-leaning independents say they support granting legal status.
- 45% were against the idea.
- 38% were against a pathway to legal status in the 2017 study.
However, the survey showed that 42% of the Republicans and independents would favor an initiative that leads to deporting every undocumented immigrant out of the United States.
Among Democrats and left-leaning independents, 87% favor allowing immigrants to remain in the United States legally.
Meanwhile, most Americans said they do not think the government is handling the asylum crisis well:
- 65% said they think the government is not doing a good job.
- 38% said the government is doing a very bad job.
- 27% said it is doing a somewhat bad job.
- 33% said they think the government is doing a good job.