How Americans See The Border Crisis

A new YouGov poll shows that more Americans attribute it to US immigration policy than to Central American gang violence:

The latest research from YouGov shows that most Americans (58%) think that the main reason behind the surge in child illegal immigration is a belief that the US is or soon will be granting amnesty to children. Only 27% think that the main cause is the increase in violent crime in Central America.

The same poll finds that 58 percent disapprove of the president’s handling of the situation and that 47 percent believe that deporting the migrant children as soon as possible should be a top priority. Dara Lind scrutinizes this last finding:

More than anything, the poll shows that Americans don’t agree on the right policy response because they don’t agree on the facts.

Americans are split on whether or not children would be safe in their home countries; 39 percent think they’re fleeing unsafe places, while 36 percent think they have somewhere safe to return. … It’s easy to look at this sort of confusion and take away the idea that Americans generally want tens of thousands of kids to be deported. The poll does show that’s true, to an extent. But that’s also because Americans are looking at the confusion in Washington and on the border and gravitating toward the option that seems most decisive — and in this case, that’s throwing more money at the border, and fast and furious deportations.