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Trump supporters out of step with America on immigration: Poll

Trump supporters on immigrants

The results of a Pew Research poll on immigrants was released and the poll, which spoke to 2,010 Americans in all 50 states and the District of Columbia by phone, found that there is a wide difference between what Trump’s supporters feel about immigrants, and what others feel about immigrants.

While half of Trump supporters believe immigrants commit more crimes — a belief statistics find to be patently false — the poll found 67 percent of Americans say immigrants are no more likely to commit crimes than U.S. citizens.

Most Trump supporters’ dark view of illegal immigrants continues with the question of how hard working the immigrants are. One out of every three Trump supporters say the immigrants are not as hard working as U.S. citizens while slightly more than three out of four Americans overall believe immigrants are as hard working as citizens.

Sixty-one percent of Americans oppose building a wall along the Mexican border, 79 percent of Trump supporters support building a wall along the Mexican border. That last number is borne out at Trump rallies, where “Build The Wall” is often chanted over and over again by Trump acolytes.

Hard-line supporters

Tessa Berenson of Time Magazine, examined the numbers closely, noting the poll looked at the differences of opinions on immigration between strong Trump supporters and moderate Trump supporters. The stronger the Trump supporter the more likely an immigrant bias exists; she does not feel that will help Trump:

A breakdown of anti-immigrant sentiment by enthusiasm for Trump points to the limits of his appeal on immigration. Pew found that those who expressed strong support for Trump held much more negative views of undocumented immigrants even compared to those who moderately support the Republican nominee.

For example, 59 percent of people who said they strongly support Trump thought undocumented immigrants were more likely to commit serious crimes; 42 percent who only moderately support or lean towards Trump thought so. 41 percent of people who strongly support Trump thought undocumented immigrants were taking jobs Americans want; only 29 percent of moderate Trump supporters thought so.

In other words, when Trump appeals to nativism, he is largely speaking to the people who are already in his corner. These new poll results show that to win over more moderate voters, speaking harshly of undocumented immigrants may hurt Trump rather than help.

At rallies and a ‘town hall’ meeting with Fox News anchor Sean Hannity (who recently admitted to eschewing the journalist’s neutral role and advising Trump), Trump has softened his view on immigrants. While during the GOP primaries he insisted all 11 million illegal immigrants would go, no exceptions, that’s not been his stance this week.

“Now, everybody agrees we get the bad ones out,” Trump told Hannity. “But…I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject, and I’ve had very strong people come up to me, really great, great people come up to me, and they’ve said, ‘Mr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person who’s been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and their family out, it’s so tough, Mr. Trump.’

“I have it all the time,” he added. “It’s a very, very hard thing.”

Coulter and flip-flop

What may be a hard thing for his supporters is his reversal, taken to try and find a way to stop the bleeding as Hillary Clinton and the Democrats widen the gap. But whether he is sincere in his about-face or not, he may lose some of his strident supporters, who may forgo voting altogether.

One such supporter is the extreme right-wing firebrand, Anne Coulter. Coulter, a staunch supporter of deporting the 11 million and building the wall, was launching her new book, In Trump We Trust when news of flip-flop from the man she worships came down.

Given her book contains the lines: “There’s nothing Trump can do that won’t be forgiven. Except change his immigration policies” you just had to know she would not react well.

She told mediaite.com that if he really was softening his stance then her book tour would be “one of the shortest on record” and lamented the “mistake” her hero was making.

“I think this is a mistake. It sounds like it’s coming from consultants,” Coulter said. “I’ve thought he’s made other mistakes, and I’ve given him constructive criticism when I think he makes a mistake. I think this is a mistake.”

Trump seeks votes

Given Trump’s reversal falls in line with what the Pew Research poll found to be the opinions of most Americans, it’s hard to argue it is a mistake, not if he’s to get back into the race for the White House. Unless, of course, the reversal is so obviously self-serving that those on the cusp of voting for him will see through it, leading to his still losing the election, along with losing respect amongst his backers.

One final set of poll numbers: 29 percent of Americans say they favor a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants while only 24 percent favor beefed up border security. While 29 percent is not a large number, those two numbers combined represent change: it’s the first time more people favor citizenship than favor increased security.

The poll was conducted between August 9 and 16.

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