(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – A month has passed since the Arizona State Legislature first gave the go-ahead to the controversial Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act. The views of Americans on the scope of this piece of legislation have not changed: a large majority of respondents are in favour of implementing four of its key components in their own state.
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) – A month has passed since the Arizona State Legislature first gave the go-ahead to the controversial Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act. The views of Americans on the scope of this piece of legislation have not changed: a large majority of respondents are in favour of implementing four of its key components in their own state.
Three-in-four Americans (76%) believe that transporting someone who is an illegal immigrant should be a crime, two thirds would arrest people who are unable to provide documentation to prove they are in the U.S. legally (69%) and require state and local police to determine the status of a person if there is "reasonable suspicion" that they are illegal immigrants. A majority (57%) would make it a crime to hire day labourers off the street.
The results show little variation from a survey conducted in April, after the Arizona Senate had endorsed the legislation but before Governor Jan Brewer signed it. Despite a myriad of criticism from civil rights organizations—and questions about whether the law would lead to racial profiling—the needle has not moved. Most Americans believe that Arizona has taken the right course of action.
In March 2006, the Pew Hispanic Center calculated the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. at somewhere between 11.5 million to 12 million. A majority of respondents believe that these illegal immigrants take jobs away from American workers (59%), and two-in-five (42%) would require them to leave their jobs and be deported.
U.S. President Barack Obama supports the notion of allowing undocumented immigrants to become citizens, provided they learn English and pay a fine. This approach is similar to the "Z Visa" idea that was discussed and rejected by the U.S. Senate in 2007—and is currently supported by just one-in-four Americans (25%).
Immigration may become a thorny issue for the Democrats in the 2010 Congressional election. Despite Obama’s characterization of the Arizona bill as a threat to "basic notions of fairness," the level of rejection for the key components remains low.
