Survey: Texans less eager to deport

Both Democrats, GOP agree that immigration helps more than it hurts

Despite President Donald Trump’s push to reduce immigration and deport millions of immigrants here illegally, a majority of Texans believe immigration helps the state more than it hurts, oppose a plan to build a border wall and favor a pathway to citizenship if certain conditions are met.

A whopping 90 percent support allowing immigrants here illegally to become citizens after a long waiting period, payment of taxes and a penalty, passing a criminal background check and showing English proficiency, according to a poll released Tuesday.

It was one of the poll’s few policy areas that captured an equal share of Republican and Democrat support. The annual statewide survey by the Texas Lyceum, a nonprofit for young Texas leaders, focused on immigration and polled 1,000 adults in early April with a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

It tends to portray a less conservative perspective than most political polls

which survey registered voters. Republicans generally have higher voter participation rates.

Across the nation, 80 percent of Americans agree with a similar path to citizenship for certain immigrants, according to a McClatchy-Marist Poll in February.

But the overwhelming approval of such an idea seemed surprising in redder-than-red Texas where most respondents cast immigration and border security as the state’s No. 1 problem.

By comparison, a poll last summer by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin found that just 49 percent of Texans, and only 29 percent of Republicans, support comprehensive reform including a pathway to citizenship for most immigrants here illegally.

Partisan attitudes

Joshua Blank, research director for the nonpartisan Texas Lyceum, said the findings indicate that attitudes over the issue are highly partisan.

“What you see in immigration reform is that it’s very similar to the Affordable Care Act. All the partisan predisposition that goes with the health care law comes into play,” Blank said. “Republicans are against it and Democrats are for it. But when you look at the actual provisions of what it may entail, Republicans are generally pretty favorable.”

He noted that 13 percent of Texans say their primary concern over illegal immigration is that immigrants should follow the legal process.

“But if you have a waiting period, a penalty, a requirement to pay taxes, all of a sudden people say, ‘Yeah, we’re OK with this,’” Blank said.

Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, said the answer indicates that there is a middle ground for compromise.

“The trick is finding it, and having politicians with the courage and conviction to resist efforts to undermine the reforms from both the left and the right,” he said.

He noted that most people agree with such a general statement, but that key partisan divisions exist over some of the terms. How long should a waiting period be, for instance? If it becomes 15 years rather than five, such a proposal would lose Democratic support. Similarly many Republicans would oppose a shorter path to citizenship.

“The 2013 bipartisan reform was very similar to that,” Jones said. “What we saw was that the left and the right can’t agree on what the definition of long is, what constitutes a significant criminal record, and what is a sufficient penalty and acceptable level of English … these are the building blocks of reform.”

Nevertheless, it does indicate a broad consensus that some type of solution is needed. Congress has been stuck on the issue since President Ronald Reagan granted some 3 million immigrants amnesty in 1986.

But Jones noted that the survey found 31 percent of Texans support Trump deporting millions of immigrants here illegally — a figure much larger than the 10 percent who don’t favor a pathway to citizenship, suggesting an incongruence.

‘Ahead of politicians’

The findings also suggest why congressional gridlock over the issue has persisted for so long.

Fifty-nine percent of GOP voters, for example, said they support largescale deportations, nearly twice the amount of Texans who do.

“A Republican member of Congress is going to care far more about the 59 percent of Republicans in support of deportation than the 90 percent of Texans who broadly support general reform,” Jones said.

That’s because only one Texan member of Congress has a competitive seat, U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, a San Antonio Republican whose district includes a large swath of the border and which was previously represented by Pete Gallego, a Democrat.

Bill Hammond, a lobbyist who headed the Texas Association of Business for 18 years and vocally supported comprehensive immigration reform, said the high support for a path to citizenship in the survey represents the disconnect between mainstream Texans and GOP primary voters.

“The people typically are ahead of the politicians on some of the issues,” he said. “The fear of doing something and being criticized by Republican primary voters overtakes the support on this from the mainstream.”

Rick Figueroa, a Houston businessman on Trump’s Hispanic advisory council, said the proposal described in the survey is reasonable.

“The question is how to get to it,” he said. “But I think it’s coming … I think there are some brave Republicans who are willing to do it.”

He said the poll’s finding that 61 percent of Texans oppose Trump’s proposal to build a southern wall is not surprising in this border state.

“It’s just a shiny object that distracts from the bigger issue,” he said. “If you solve a guest worker program, the wall becomes an ancillary issue.”

On state level issues, however, Texans were more supportive of restrictive immigration policies. They favored keeping state border security funding at current levels despite Republicans in the White House and Congress who have promised more federal funding on the issue.

‘In a sweet spot’

About half of all Texans, and 86 percent of Republicans, said local law enforcement agencies should hand over immigrants here illegally to federal officials. The level of GOP support for that policy only helps lawmakers in Austin pushing for a law that would ban socalled sanctuary policies in the state.

“Any polling in the mainstream of Republicans and independents shows about the same thing,” said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, the Senate’s GOP majority leader. “Elections have consequences and, yes, with a Republican majority in the Legislature I think this poll shows support for the bills that are passing. I think we’re in a sweet spot on these issues, with what most of the voters want.”

But the poll also found that 61 percent of Texans support allowing immigrants here illegally to pay in-state tuition at state universities. That’s an increase from when the poll asked the same question in 2011, when only 52 percent favored it.

The survey suggests harsh attitudes on immigration may change in coming years.

Eighty percent of respondents between 18 and 29 said immigration helps the U.S. more than it hurts. Only 46 percent of those 65 and older, however, said immigrants were a boon to the U.S.