Attitudes Shifting on Immigration, Slowly, Predictably

So now that the dust has settled after the mid-term election and the holiday daze is beginning to clear, people are thinking a little differently. The most recent poll, reported by UPI,  finds that Americans (I have a huge problem with polls that pretend to speak for “American’s, ” but we’ll come back to that later) are easing their belligerent feelings on immigration. Specifically Democrats and independents are moving away from the anti-immigrant side of the debate.

“Overall, 57 percent of those surveyed were opposed to immigration, down about 10 percentage points since July. Most of the movement was among Democrats and independents who switched from being opposed to being unsure.
More than half, 56 percent said immigrants are taking jobs away from U.S. citizens, including 74 percent of Republicans, 60 percent of independents and 42 percent of Democrats. Only one third overall, 34 percent, said immigrants are mostly filling jobs U.S. citizens do not want.”

And that’s a change for the better.

Here’s more: 15 percent of those surveyed say the number of people allowed to enter the country legally should increase; 48 percent of democrats say undocumented immigrants should be given a path to citizenship while 31 percent of independents and 13 percent of republicans feel the same.

That’s just dandy. And predictable. Makes you wonder if some people really want to reform immigration or just say they do because its politically expedient. Undocumented workers are nice to have around come election time, why would anyone want to spoil a good thing?