61% Favor A State Law That Would Shut Down Repeat Offenders Who Hire Illegal Immigrants

The U.S. Supreme Court late last week upheld the legality of an Arizona law cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, and most voters support having a similar law in their own state.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% of Likely U.S. Voters favor a law in their state that would shut down companies that knowingly and repeatedly hire illegal immigrants. Just 21% oppose such a law, and another 18% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Eighty-two percent (82%) think businesses should be required to use the federal government’s E-Verify system to determine if a potential employee is in the country legally. Twelve percent (12%) disagree and oppose such a requirement.

Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters also feel that landlords should be required to check and make sure a potential renter is in the country legally before renting them an apartment. Twenty-eight percent (28%) do not believe landlords should be required to make such checks.

Separate recent polling shows that two-out-of-three voters (66%) favor strict government sanctions against employees who hire illegal immigrants, while 51% support sanctions against those who rent or sell property to those who are in this country illegally.  This is consistent with surveys for years.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on May 27-28, 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.