Immigration Bill Provisions Gain Wide Support in Poll

Source: nytimes



May 25, 2007
Immigration Bill Provisions Gain Wide Support in Poll

By JULIA PRESTON and MARJORIE CONNELLY
As opponents from the right and left challenge an immigration bill before Congress, there is broad support among Americans — Democrats, Republicans and independents alike — for the major provisions in the legislation, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Taking a pragmatic view on a divisive issue, a large majority of Americans want to change the immigration laws to allow illegal immigrants to gain legal status and to create a new guest worker program to meet future labor demands, the poll found.

.........

Half of Americans say they are ready to transform the process for selecting new immigrants as proposed in the bill, giving priority to job skills and education levels over family ties to the United States, which have been the foundation of the immigration system for four decades.

Point by point, large majorities expressed support for measures in the legislation that has been under debate since Monday in the Senate.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/25/us/25poll.html?_r=1&th=&oref=slogin&emc=th&pagewanted=print

Without knowing the specific poll questions or methodology it doesn't mean a thing. I have strong doubts that the poll results are accurate and actually reflective of most Americans on the right and left. In the article NYT refers readers to this web site for the questions, except there is nothing there. I can tell you what staffers from my represenative and Democratic senator have said, and that is calls from constituents are running very negative and angry about the bill, and many believe it to be a repeat of the 1986 amnesty boondoggle. Julia Preston is giving the pro-corporate, pro cheap labor line on this.

http://nytimes.com/ref/us/polls_index.html

Poll must be wrong or biased or have improper methodology.

More often than not, they're designed to influence public opinion- NOT to reflect it, and there are many ways to do this that make the results "look scientific" when they'd never pass muster in an undergraduate stats course.

You can very likely see that at work in the latest Gallup poll on religion as well.

From the article:

"The nationwide telephone poll did not ask respondents about the immigration bill itself, but there were questions about its most significant provisions."

So they didn't actually ask people what they thought about the proposed immigration bill, but they did find that the bill has wide support. Um, okay then.

which gives immediate legal status to all 12-20 million currently il-legal immigrants currently in the country. In fact, the questions I've seen deliberately try to obfuscate the issue, by claiming there is no "amnesty," when if fact immediate legal work status will be granted to all illegal immigrants, without ANY penalties or fines. Below is the New York Times summary of the bills:



Note in the bottom left-hand corner how it says "Allow illegal immigrants to work in the U.S. while applying for renewable four-year visas..."

Allowing illegal activity to continue 'while applying' is AMNESTY by anyone's definition of the word.

And if those taking the polls understood that this bill actually gives immediate amnesty to illegal immigrants, an overwhelming majority would oppose it. But, once again, our politicians have bamboozled us by trying to claim this amnesty provision is not really amnesty.