31% Favor Increasing Legal Immigration If Border Is Secured
Americans are slightly more supportive of increasing the number of legal immigrants allowed into the United States if the federal government can fully secure the border first to prevent future illegal immigration. But most still want to decrease legal immigration or keep it about the same.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 31% of American Adults now think the government should increase the number of immigrants allowed to legally enter the country if it actually secures the border and prevents illegal immigration. That’s up from 26% a year ago.
But nearly as many (29%) want to decrease the level of legal immigration instead, while another 29% prefer to leave things unchanged. This compares to 38% who wanted to decrease legal immigration in May of last year and 24% who felt things should stay the same. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
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The survey of 1,000 Adults nationwide was conducted on June 11-12, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
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