The policy would involve the deportation of between 15 million and 20 million illegal aliens who are residing in the U.S. While such plans are frequently excoriated in a corporate press environment typically sympathetic to migrants, new polling shows that the effort would be widely supported by Americans. Nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of voters say they would favor “a new national program to deport all” illegal aliens currently residing in the U.S., according to a new CBS News/YouGov Poll of 1,615 registered voters. That figure includes a third of Democrats who back the proposal. Among Republicans, 90 percent support mass deportations. A similarly sized majority say they would support law enforcement trying to identify which people are U.S. citizens and which are illegal aliens. Just under half of respondents (48 percent) say they would favor the government setting up large detention centers where people would be held while the government determines if they should be deported. The idea of mass deportations is popular among Hispanics, with 53 percent saying they would support the program and 47 percent opposing the idea. A majority of white respondents (67 percent) favor deporting illegal aliens, with 33 percent opposed. Among black respondents, 47 percent supported the measure, while 53 percent opposed. Though the polling numbers reveal seemingly overwhelming support for returning migrants to their home nations, a “much smaller portion of Americans who purport to favor mass deportation of undocumented immigrants would support what it would practically entail," Thomas Gift, an associate professor of political science and director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, U.K., told Newsweek. "Showing papers on-demand. Racial profiling. A huge increase in the number and scale of ICE raids,” he said. “But the polling is reflective of just how dissatisfied American voters are with the failure of both Republicans and Democrats to secure the border,” Gift remarked. “Immigration is again surging to the top of the 'most important problem' list because Washington has shown itself completely ill-equipped to execute common-sense immigration enforcement." Daniel Garza, president of the grassroots Latino advocacy group LIBRE Initiative, said Trump’s proposal was “within the confines of current law” and is backed by Hispanics because of the ongoing crisis at the southern border. “In the absence of good governance, what people then resort to is that the pendulum will swing the other way and opt for the alternative which is a more restrictive approach,” Garza told The New York Post. “What we have right now is a very open interpretation of current policy, which is what the Biden administration is doing — and it’s failed miserably,” he added.Last month, former President Donald Trump highlighted a key policy priority for his administration should he return to the White House.
