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49% Concerned Efforts To Identify Illegal Immigrants Will Violate Civil Rights

Voters are showing less concern that anti-immigration efforts will also end up violating civil rights and most continue to oppose automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to illegal immigrants.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows that just 49% are even somewhat concerned that efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants will also end up violating the civil rights of some U.S. citizens. That’s down from 55% in April and 57% in May 2010.

Today, 47% are not as concerned that civil rights may be violated in the effort to seek out illegal immigrants. The current figures include 22% who are Very Concerned and just 12% who are Not At All Concerned. (To see survey question wording, click here.) 

Thirty-two percent (32%) of voters now believe a child should be a U.S. citizen if he or she is born here to a woman who is illegal. That’s generally consistent with results from April of this year and August of last year. In April 2006, 36% supported automatic citizenship for children of illegal immigrants

Sixty percent (60%) oppose automatic citizenship for children born in America to illegal immigrants, a finding that has held steady for years.

(Want a free daily e-mail update ? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter  or Facebook .  

The national survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on August 15-16, 2011 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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