Poll: Voters support Obama immigration change
(CNN) – A majority of voters agreed with the immigration policy unveiled by President Barack Obama last week, according to a new poll.
The Bloomberg Poll released Tuesday showed 64% of likely voters backed the shift, which would allow the children of illegal immigrants who meet certain requirements to stave off deportation for two years. Although 30% of those surveyed disagreed with the president, coveted independent voters agreed with the decision by better than a two-to-one margin.
However, support was divided along party lines. Fifty-six percent of likely Republican voters opposed the decision while 86% of Democrats issued praise. Sixty-six percent of independents backed the policy change, while 26% disagreed.
Obama announced the shift on Friday, saying it will make U.S. immigration policy "more fair, more efficient and more just." The changes would allow people younger than 30 who came to the United States before the age of 16, pose no criminal or security threat and were successful students or served in the military to receive a two-year deferral from deportation.
Mitt Romney has faced a sizable deficit among Latino voters and despite pledging to veto the DREAM Act, a law that would provide a legal pathway to citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, earlier in the election cycle, he declined to say over the weekend if he would overturn the new policy if elected president.
The latest poll results underscore a challenge for the presumptive Republican presidential candidate as he attempts to court the Latino vote, the nation's largest ethnic minority who strongly supported Obama's candidacy in 2008.
Republican senator and high profile Romney backer Marco Rubio dropped plans on Monday to introduce his own immigration legislation that would grant work visas to some young Americans who entered the U.S. illegally. Rubio spokesman Alex Conant said Obama's announcement "took away our momentum and made the politics a lot tougher."
Obama and Romney are scheduled to address the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials annual conference later in the week in Florida, a key general election battleground state with a large Hispanic population.
Both candidates also released Spanish language ads this week. Romney unveiled a spot Monday attacking the president's record on the economy. Team Obama released a spot Tuesday promoting the national health care law that will run in Nevada, Colorado and Florida featuring Latino talk show host Cristina Saralegui, who endorsed the president after the policy shift, according to the campaign.
The Bloomberg National Poll surveyed 734 likely voters between June 15 and June 18 with a sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
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Have at em Mr. President of these United States of America . . . Do us proud!
I say if the government invest all this money into these young people to educate them, why should they go to another country and use what we pay for, further more they can start paying taxes and bring more revenue to this country.
I question this polling with the outrage that has been taking place.
Also this nation needs stringent immigration laws implemented in second term....all just say yes on OBAMA12.
Rubio dropped his plan and won't say what it was because it was the same plan as the president's.....LOL!
You have my utmost admiration, President Obama. Don't let anyone deter you from doing what's right. Marco Rubio and the Republican Congress may fuss yet again, but Marco's Dream plan would not have gone anywhere .. it would have been delayed, and delayed, until after the election ... time enough for him to brag about what a great thing the Dream Bill will be .. only it would never come to pass. You told Congress to "do something," but they won't .. not when they have more breath to filiabuster any progress you want. I and millions of Americans applaud you, Mr. President.
Voters support it because it was the "Right thing to do"
Yes, it is a start to getting a resolution to the immigration problem.
"A majority of voters agreed with the immigration policy unveiled by President Barack Obama last week, according to a new poll."
Not likely
No amnesty until the order is sealed. No compromise on this!
I think Obama is doing the right thing.
Indeed, it was a move move from our President but he can NOT forget to end up the green card backlog. Lots of good business man are waiting for their green card to open up a new business and to hire people to run it.
It is nor right that a approved green card process must wait 6 to 10 years to get a visa to be able to get their final process done.
Unless your from Arizona.
Yes, this is a quandry... because Rubio was about to introduce the same version, now they have to figure out what to do. Republicans can't really slam it or they will be slamming one their own – and he is a golden child in that party (right now anyway). What to do, what to do...
Well this voter does not approve.
We have 3,000,000 technological positions available that we cannot fill because we are not graduating enough job applicants who are citizens and who have the skills and the training to take them, and we are deporting or sending back to country of origin some of our best and brightest students. Congress is not going to do anything about it so long as "conservatives" dominate the House and block cloture in the Senate. President Obama did what is clearly in the national interest in moving this policy modification forward.
Those who oppose the measure need to take a look at themselves. Maybe too many hours of Fox News has created a hateful person?
Not a surprising poll, since most Americans are fundamentally fair. If the GOP in Congress had not blocked the Dream Act, the same level of fairness and efficiency in terms of correcting immigration procedures long ignored would have been achieved. And the GOP would be in a much better position...but compromise is still a dirty word for the far right.
voters say obama's disgraced presidency is over!!!
So now we will have 1 million more people to compete with for our jobs, because their parents crossed the border and broke the law.We reward people who break laws to enter our country. Maybe they should go back and have their own Mexican Spring to fix their own country. Politicians on both sides will do just about anything to be elected or remain in office. What part of 16.3 Trillion dollars of debt don't they understand? No this will not add more tax payers to help reduce the debt, it will only increase the numbers lining up for freebees.
I don't see how anybody with a conscience and a basic sense of freedom and fairness could oppose this policy shift. Deporting these bright and hard working young people is cruel and counter-productive. But hey...so are Republicans s I guess that's why they oppose this change.
Obama is playing chess while Romney is playing checkers.
If Republicans would stop blocking the Dream Act in Congress, this wouldn't be necessary.
We have Congress that makes laws and the Executive Branch that is supposed to enforce those laws. I guess when the President thinks he is smarter than Congress he can decide which laws not to enforce. Let's see...maybe he'll begin to curtail freedom of speech next or maybe property rights.. This is obvious pandering.
OBAMA IS JUST PLAYING POLITICS.