Former President Donald Trump has vowed to take extreme actions to secure the U.S.-Mexico border if he wins November’s presidential election.
And that promise is supported by a key voting bloc — Latinos.
The most recent Axios-Ipsos Latino Poll shows that the percentage of Latinos who support erecting a border wall and deporting all undocumented immigrants has increased by at least 10 points since 2021.
According to the research, even among those who might have connections to immigration, Trump’s calls for increased border security and possibly his anti-immigrant rhetoric are having an impact.
The results also illuminate Republicans’ recent gains among Latinos and reflect the frustration that has elevated illegal immigration to the top issue for many Americans during election season.
If Trump wins back the presidency, he has vowed to increase border securityand organize mass deportations, which he claims could include a million people.
President Joe Biden now claims he would be prepared to “close the border” in the event of spikes in the number of border crossers, following a political setback over border security.
Axios reported on the findings:
42% of Latino adults surveyed said they support building a wall or fence along the entire U.S.–Mexico border. That’s a 12-point jump from December 2021.
38% support sending all undocumented immigrants in the U.S. back to their country of origin — up from 28% in 2021.
In addition, 64% of Latinos said they support giving the president the authority to shut U.S. borders if there are too many immigrants trying to enter the country. It was the first time the survey asked this question.
Support for building a wall was strongest among Cuban Americans (58%), who generally are more conservative than many other Latinos and have benefited from decades of Cold War-era “special treatment” on immigration.
Support for the border wall is lowest among Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans (37%). Only 43% of Central Americans support the wall.
According to the survey, after inflation and crime, Latinos’ top concerns in this election year are immigration and crime.
Even though the percentage of Latinos who believe that anyone in the country illegally should be deported is on the rise, a sizable majority (65%) still prefer to offer them a path to citizenship.
A massive 59% are in favor of granting asylum to refugees who are escaping crime and violence in Latin America in the United States.
Ipsos pollster and senior vice president Chris Jackson told Axios that the poll “illustrates that some immigration hardline positions (are) incrementally more popular” among Latinos.
This comes as the former Border Patrol union head claims that since President Joe Biden gave Vice President Kamala Harris the responsibility to address the underlying causes of illegal immigration in 2021, Harris has fallen short.
“It’s very disappointing,” Brandon Judd, who recently retired as president of the Border Patrol Union, told Fox News. “We gave her the policies that she needed to implement. She refused to implement those.”
