The liberal immigration policies of the United States continue to be deeply ingrained in the national identity of the vast majority of Americans—most welcome legal immigration.
Support for illegal immigration has been dwindling even as lawmakers fight over immigration policy on the border.
Most Americans(57%), including 84% of Democrats and 55% of independents, believe America’s character is shaped by its openness to newcomers. Since July 2021, when 66% of respondents in the US favored being open to others, sentiments have significantly shifted downward.
An ex-top Democrat lawyer on Monday claimed that President Joe Biden needed to do a significant course correction before the November election because his party’s “elites” were “out of touch” with the current majority sentiment in the United States.
According to the RealClearPolling (RCP) average, Biden is trailing Trump by 1.8% in a head-to-head battle in 2024, and illegal immigration has emerged as a critical topic in the campaign.
Critics are criticizing Biden’s management of the border. Ex-House Judiciary Committee general counsel Julian Epstein expressed concern that Democrats were disregarding the views of “a strong majority” of Americans over the border crisis.
The RCP average of surveys conducted between February 8 and March 5 indicates that just 30.6% of respondents are satisfied with Biden’s approach to immigration.
Republicans have been pushing for more border controls, while some Democrats have called on Biden to take action against Texas in response to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s crackdown on illegal border crossings, including taking over the National Guard.
During Thursday’s State of the Union address, Biden addressed the incident involving 22-year-old Laken (erroneously calling her “Lincoln”) Riley and apologized for labeling the suspect as “illegal” in response to a challenge from Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The University of Georgia police detained Jose Antonio Ibarra, a 22-year-old nursing student from Venezuela who had illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, on February 23 and charged him with the murder of Riley.
The number of illegal immigrants encountered by United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in fiscal year 2023 was 2,045,838, which is an increase from 2,206,436 in fiscal year 2022 and 1,659,206 in fiscal year 2021, according to official data.
