More than half of all Americans, including a quarter of Democrats, support the mass deportation of immigrants who are living in the country illegally, a new poll found.

The Scripps News/Ipsos survey’s findings come as former President Trump and his allies have intensely focused on immigration in the 2024 election cycle.

About 54 percent of respondents — 86 percent of Republicans, 58 percent of independents and 25 percent of Democrats — said they “strongly” or “somewhat” support a wide-scale effort to deport millions of immigrants, and 59 percent said they are closely following the “immigration situation at the U.S.-Mexico border.”

That is fucking terrifying.

  • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    Very sensationalistic title. “Somewhat supporting the deportation of illegal immigrants” is broad enough that most people can make it compatible with whatever their more specific worldview is. Deporting illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes, for example, would fall under that.

    • Voyajer@lemmy.world
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      I was about to say, “somewhat” is doing some heavy lifting here.

      The mass deportation of undocumented immigrants:

      30% - Strongly support

      24% - Somewhat support

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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      68% also support a path for citizenship for undocumented immigrants who came here as children. Really, the only thing this says is 54% of Americans don’t support mass amnesty - which, while unfortunate, should not be surprising to anyone who hasn’t bought into the “99% of the electorate is secretly far-left!” shite sometimes peddled by the deluded.

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        If anything, I’m very surprised that 46% effectively support mass amnesty. That’s much higher than I’d have guessed. If the question were posed to me as “would you deport known cartel members who are actively operating while in the country illegally” I’d say yes. That of course would be a vanishingly small percentage of illegals, but it shows how easily the answers can be manipulated.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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            We should declare them terrorists and ship them to gitmo.

            Let’s not. In fact, let’s not abuse US and international law with Gitmo ever again, please.

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            3 months ago

            I’m going to assume you’re just being facetious here, but I’m strongly against facilities like Guantanamo. Human rights have to be universal, otherwise they’re only suggestions.

            • Riccosuave@lemmy.world
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              Let me ask you a nuanced question:

              What type of punishment would you be in favor of for high level cartel members who have significant pull with prison gangs in the US?

              If I put it another way. Are you okay with the type of supermax confinement that El Chapo is under at the moment as an example?

              I’m asking because this is something that I personally wrestle with as I think it is a gray area within my own ethical boundaries as they relate to human rights.

              • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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                3 months ago

                You mean if they’re in the US legally? I’m not against prisons in general, so long as people are treated humanely and they are focused on rehabilitation rather than punishment.

    • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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      Deporting illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes, for example, would fall under that.

      The actual phrasing in the poll was, “The mass deportation of undocumented immigrants”. I kind of doubt most people would think targeted deportation like for criminals would count as “mass deportation of undocumented immigrants”.

    • Cagi@lemmy.ca
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      “The survey was conducted using KnowledgePanel, the largest and most well-established online probability-based panel that is representative of the adult U.S. population. Our recruitment process employs a scientifically developed addressed-based sampling methodology using the latest Delivery Sequence File of the USPS – a database with full coverage of all delivery points in the U.S. Households invited to join the panel are randomly selected from all available households in the U.S. Persons in the sampled households are invited to join and participate in the panel. Those selected who do not already have internet access are provided a tablet and internet connection at no cost to the panel member. Those who join the panel and who are selected to participate in a survey are sent a unique password-protected log-in used to complete surveys online. As a result of our recruitment and sampling methodologies, samples from KnowledgePanel cover all households regardless of their phone or internet status and findings can be reported with a margin of sampling error and projected to the general population.”

      • teuto@lemmy.teuto.icu
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        As a policy I don’t answer the phone with an unknown number from any area code except my work HQ, I don’t answer the door for anyone that looks like they are paid to be there, I don’t open mail if there’s any hint it might be a mass mailer. At the end of the day, no matter what methodology they use, they are always going to get a bias from people who are willing to participate and be contactable.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      Feel free to actually look at their methodology instead of talking out your ass.

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    The survey also found that 39 percent of respondents named immigration a top issue for them this election year — second only to inflation.

    WHY?

    • BigFig@lemmy.world
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      Because if you still watch TV news it’s literally all they talk about like it’s somehow a real problem. They constantly describe millions of dirty immigrants pouring over the border wall, and yet never show a video or images of this

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    “KnowledgePanel has been at the forefront of conducting online research for more than two decades.”

    Online poll = gift-wrapped bullshit.

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    This shit is the 21st century witch hunt. Covid cripples the economy from all the governments basically telling you to stay inside and businesses shuttering all over followed by ballooning the national debt by giving out tons of handouts for this. Then once they say “ok it’s been enough time, go out there and get back to work” suddenly all that covid money given to people is being spent, driving up the cost of everything.

    Now just a couple years later, everyone is looking for someone to blame for why costs are so high. “They gave us money to survive before… now it costs so much to do everything! It must be the BROWN people’s fault!” simply because they are the newest wave of immigrants in a country built by immigrants for centuries.

    Surely it can’t be due to poor zoning laws, bad economic policies by the last administration (which set us up to fail with massive multi-trillion dollar debt thanks to all those big business tax cuts) and a news media gone wild, controlled by a handful of oligarchs who have more money and power than ever before after profiting from it all.

    As always, a masterful performance by the rich and powerful. Let’s make america get fucked again! #Recession2029

  • DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world
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    It’s amazing how the Republicans still get away with causing a host of ACTUAL problems and then deflect by blaming the country’s woes on immigrants (or LGBTQ people, or DEI, etc.).

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    I guess 54% of americans dont realize how much more difficult and more expensive their lives would be without them. These people fill in the gaps so your children can go to college and get a lib arts degree. Not many people are graduating from high school to go pick strawberries.

    • ravhall@discuss.online
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      Kids with lib arts degrees aren’t getting jobs and can’t pay rent so maybe getting a job doing something useful would be a good thing.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        Picking strawberries isn’t going to pay rent and student loans either.

        And before you say “well maybe they shouldn’t have taken them out”, maybe we shouldn’t have been telling teenagers to take on tens of thousands of dollars of debt. Or maybe we shouldn’t be charging tens of thousands of dollars for what has basically been a requirement for any entry-level career job.

  • SilentStorms@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    I don’t think those people have put much thought into the logistics on how that would happen, and that number would drop significantly if they did. This is what the Democrats should be messaging.

    Americans are pretty ideologically incoherent anyway. I’m pretty sure a majority supports granting amnesty to some or all illegal immigrants.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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      Americans are pretty ideologically incoherent anyway.

      Fuckin’ mood. You can’t have an IRL conversation about political policy with people because it’s all fucking feels to them. My personal ‘favorite’ is people saying they’re against gun control, and voting accordingly, but if you ask them what their policy preferences are they’re more pro-gun-control than many people who claim to be pro-gun control.

  • cheers_queers@lemm.ee
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    i just listened to an interesting podcast that featured a poll expert. he said it’s impossible to get a true range of responses because most younger people will not answer an unknown phone call. I’m guessing the majority of people polled are over 50.

    • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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      I’m over 50. I never answer unknown numbers. I also never click on links in text messages from people I don’t know.

      Politicians are largely to blame for both. I get so many calls & texts from local, state, and national political candidates begging me for money…

  • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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    Bullshit. The poll was pushed at the right demographic. That demographic being stupid bigots. The secret to a poll is making sure you get the answer you want by targeting the right simps.

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    We’ll just need to build some places to keep them all together until we can get them out. Probably most efficient to get them there by train. Wait…

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      “I wish America could build some effective passenger rail and free housing”

      monkey’s paw curls

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    I would like to see any of those favoring deportation take on the jobs the immigrants take. Maybe they will. But dunno.

    • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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      exactly, it would be a catastrophe. so many industries would grind to a halt without their trained laborers, and even if you did somehow manage to backfill all those with documented workers (yeah right), the cost to do so would be insane for less skilled, less efficient workers. the inflation would make post-covid look insignificant by comparison.

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
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      The political machine criminalizes more symptoms of despair, the legal machine incarcerates more desperate people. People will work those jobs.

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    When leftists tell liberals that America is and always has been a fascist state, this is a small fraction of what they mean.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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      Which states are not fascist states? I’m curious. Or is every state a fascist state?

    • wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io
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      I feel like we’re starting to paint fascism with too broad a brush.

      The US has been and continues to be one of the most diverse countries in the world. Name another country where the majority race is 60% or less and the largest ethnicity is below 20%? The closest one I can think of is South Africa, but other examples are few and far between.

      So if not by race and ethnicity, then how else could we measure how fascist the US is? Perhaps by nationalism. Well, while most Americans are patriotic, most also believe that nationalism is a serious threat to America - from Statista. Wouldn’t we need the majority to at least believe that nationalism wasn’t a threat to America in order for it to be a “fascist country?”

      I’m all for looking at ways to improve things around here, but I am not for the extreme viewpoints from both sides of the aisle as of late. We don’t need to pigeonhole everyone to effect change. To the contrary, we’d get a lot more done for the American people if we teamed up against those who stand to gain from the gridlock.

      • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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        It’s a common pattern. Something actually bad exists, and a word is invented to describe that bad thing. People want to call the things they don’t like by that bad word, even if it’s not quite right, so the definition starts to widen a bit. It’s a very bad thing so it’s good to call things you don’t like by that word, it makes everyone else hate them too! The word stretches and stretches, and eventually everything vaguely bad is called that word. It loses its meaning.

        A new word is invented to describe some specific actually bad thing. Repeat.

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          My local uni pulled this shit with “sustainability.” It became so inclusive of a term that it lost all meaning. And then guess what? Solar panels stopped getting put on buildings, no windmills were put up. They added more gas turbines and steam tunnels.

          They did convert to LED lighting though, so that’s a plus.

          It’s been 10 years and I’m still pissed about the misappropriation of the term. When you focus on everything, you focus on nothing.

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        I don’t think you’re dumb enough to actually the consider mass deportation of millions your insanely reductive and dismissive “immigration laws.”

        But, as a liberal, you just might be clueless enough to not realize when America has done that, historically, who’s actually a citizen, here legally, or the guardian of a US citizen is usually a secondary concern.

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    Even if you agree… how do you pay for it? What are the logistics for rounding up, housing, and deporting that many people? How do you determine where to deport them to?

    Part of the problem, that could be fixed almost immediately, is to allow people to apply for asylum status from their home countries, as of right now they can’t claim asylum until they’re already (illegally) in the US.

    If they could claim asylum from their home countries THEN come here, they wouldn’t be here illegally.

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      There’s always money to spend on profiting from human suffering in this country. If you think there won’t be a cottage industry that springs up around bounty hunting illegal immigrants if that was to become legal then you need a better imagination.

    • ravhall@discuss.online
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      There is no way it could happen, logistically. Even small countries struggle with it. The US is so disorganized and lazy. Also, blue states aren’t going to be strongly enforcing it.