Today, NDN released polls conducted among all voters in four key battleground states - Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada - that show strong support for comprehensive immigration reform. As Simon and Courtney mentioned, the poll was conducted in key swing states that also have a large Hispanic Population. Additionally, the states in question are reflective of the cross-section of Hispanics in the United States, with Florida's Hispanic population consisting mainly of foreign-born Hispanics from the Caribbean and South America, Nevada with mostly foreign-born Hispanics from Mexico, and New Mexico and Colorado with largely native-born Hispanics.
For an in-depth look at how the public views the immigration debate in these four states, please view our full Immigration Survey Report here.
As stated in the Executive Summary, our findings indicate that in each of these four states, voters:
- Overwhelmingly support Comprehensive Immigration Reform as:
- Strengthening border security
- Strengthening interior enforcement through an employer verification plan
- New visa program for 200,000 workers annually
- Increasing the number of family visas available
- Path to earned citizenship for the undocumented once they meet certain requirements.
- Have a positive view of undocumented immigrants, believing that they have come here to work and seek a better life, are not taking jobs from American citizens and are not interested in receiving public handouts.
- Blame the federal government and businesses - not immigrants - for the broken immigration system. This tells us that the anti-immigrant message of the Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaughs of the world actually doesn't resonate with the large majority of voters.
The data also shows:
- The issue of immigration remains an important issue to voters, particularly Hispanics, and Democrats and Barack Obama are more trusted to handle the immigration issue than U.S. Sen. John McCain and the Republican Party.
- The dramatic swing of Hispanic voters to Senator Obama in Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada - with a total of 46 electoral votes - has helped turn these previously red states, which were critical to Bush's narrow victory in 2004, into competitive swing states this year.
- But in each state, 14 percent to 20 percent of the Hispanic electorate remains undecided, which translates into a two percent to six percent of the statewide vote in each state - a percentage significant enough to tip dead-even states into one camp or the other.
- The Hispanic vote may very well determine the Presidential winner in these four states. Given how close the election is, this may determine the outcome of the Presidential race itself.
Therefore, the data proves that the paranoia over the prospect of dealing with the broken immigration system due to the emotional nature of the debate as framed by anti-immigrant activists is unfounded. An overhaul of our current immigration system is not only the right thing to do, there is an urgent need for it and the data demonstrates that there is overwhelming support to enact it. Enforcement-only is not an immigration policy. We need to fix the entire broken system. Just this morning, USA TODAY's Emily Bazar wrote a story reporting how the higher application fees at ICE are actually discouraging immigrants from seeking citizenship. Even Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the research center for a series of anti-immigrant hate groups, CIS, which calls for reduced immigration agrees fees are, "probably too high" and should reflect only processing costs.
When it comes to immigration reform, our data matches the data from the many polls conducted on this issue for the last three years: politically, immigration is actually a positive and not a negative because voters want action, and from a policy standpoint there is a consensus to enact it.
