1 year ago
A majority of Americans disapprove of how the government has handled border security and support the construction of a wall on the southern border, according to a Fox News poll released Wednesday.
Seventy-one percent of registered voters surveyed said that current levels of security at the U.S. border are not strict enough, with a majority of Democrats and Biden voters saying that more needed to be done to secure the border with Mexico. Eighty-two percent of independents voiced their disapproval with current border policies.
A further 57 percent of those surveyed said they were in favor of building a border wall. Among independents, that number was 53 percent. Forty-nine percent of Hispanic voters and 40 percent of Black voters also voiced their support for the wall.
The results are a reversal from past polling, which had consistently shown that most Americans opposed the construction of a wall. Back in January 2019, 58 percent of Americans said they opposed expanding the border wall, according to Pew Research data. A February 2019 Gallup poll found that a similar 60 percent of Americans opposed the border wall.
But the figures come as the U.S. has struggled to contain an unprecedented influx at the U.S.-Mexico border of migrants from Latin America and other parts of the world fleeing gang violence, political instability and economic malaise. Thousands of migrants are apprehended every day by border agents, and cities across the U.S. have struggled to house and support the new arrivals.
The issue has become a political headache for the Biden administration, which has faced criticism from Democratic state and local officials over the federal government’s seeming inaction in the face of the crisis.
The administration has tried to change course. Last week, it said it would waive 26 federal laws and resume construction of the border wall in parts of Texas, reversing a key campaign promise. That prompted criticism from both Democrats and and Republicans, and allegations of hypocrisy on the part of the administration.
The Fox poll was conducted Oct. 6-9 in partnership with the Democratic polling firm Beacon Research and Republican polling firm Shaw & Company Research. A total of 1,007 registered voters, randomly selected from a voter file, were surveyed. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points for Democratic and Republican primary voters.
English (US)