More on how the public feels about those massive payments to illegal aliens

(AP Photo/Matt York)

The other day, Ed Morrissey looked at a recent Trafalgar poll sampling the nation’s feelings about massive reparations payments for families who were separated at the southern border. That would be the result of a pending lawsuit that the State Department is reportedly considering a settlement on. It’s a payment plan that Joe Biden initially called “garbage,” before deciding that he was actually perfectly fine with it after all. But were Trafalgar’s numbers an outlier? After all, the national opposition to the payments reflected in that poll was pretty much off the charts, showing nearly 67% disapproval, with well over half “strongly” disapproving.

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As of this weekend, those numbers are looking a lot more solid. A second, independent poll from Scott Rasmussen (not affiliated with Rasmussen Reports) has delivered very similar results. Opposition to the payments was slightly lower in this survey at 60%, with 29% approving, as opposed to 18.7% in the Trafalgar numbers. But that’s still a very wide margin, with nearly all of the existing support coming from progressive Democrats.

Twenty-nine percent (29%) of voters are in favor of providing payments to illegal immigrants who were separated from their family. A Scott Rasmussen national survey found that 60% are opposed and 11% are not sure.

Those totals include 12% who Strongly Favor the payments and 48% who are Strongly Opposed.

Survey respondents were informed that the Trump administration’s policies caused some illegal immigrants to be separated from their families. Additionally, they were told that the Biden administration is now considering payments of up to $450,000 to each person who was separated from their family.

The other number to look at here is the percentage of respondents who “strongly oppose” the payments. Rasmussen shows almost half (48%) feeling that way and Trafalgar registered 56%. That represents a pile of people from across the spectrum who are completely opposed to this plan.

The breakdown along party lines suggests that this is yet another case of the Biden administration severely misjudging the mood and temperament of the public. As you might expect, Democrats are more open to the idea, but there was still only a plurality expressing support by a 48/40 margin. Republicans overwhelmingly opposed the plan 77/18. But the killer for the national aspirations of the Democrats once again was seen among independent voters. They came close to the GOP numbers, opposing the payments 61/23.

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Digging deeper into the results, you can’t really even write this off as Biden offering a sop to his own party to shore up his base because even the Democrats are divided on the issue. Rasmussen split the Democrats between “moderate” and “progressive” respondents as judged by those who say they do or don’t “prefer policies like those of Senator Bernie Sanders.” The progressive Democrats were fine with the payments by a 53/34 margin. But the moderate Democrats went the other way, opposing the payments 57/33. And just to deliver another boot to the head, nearly all of the support for the payments came from white Democrats, while Black Democrats opposed the payments 45/35.

House Republicans have already introduced a bill intended to stop these payments from happening, but we shouldn’t expect it to go anywhere. And perhaps it might be better for Republicans and conservatives to just sit back and let the Biden administration do this while breaking out the popcorn. Joe Biden and the Democratic leadership are once again demonstrating that they are enacting policies that cater to only a small subset of their own party, to say nothing of the nation at large. These are the younger, primarily-white liberals who consistently show up at massive protests and riots in support of ideas that much of the country resoundingly reject. But the rest of the country will have their say on these matters next November. The Democrats may need a historic drubbing to finally wake up and see how deeply unpopular many of their policies truly are.

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | November 20, 2024
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