1 year ago
Democrats disapprove of the U.S. government's handling of migrant crossings at the southern border more now than at any other recorded point during Joe Biden's presidency, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.
Seventy-three percent of surveyed Democrats rate the government's handling of the influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border as "somewhat bad" or "very bad," according to the report — only 11 percentage points lower than Democrats' disapproval ratings in 2019 during Donald Trump's presidency.
The numbers from the report released Thursday mark a grim trend for Biden. Last year, Pew recorded that 62 percent of Democrats disapproved of the government's handling of the border, up from 56 percent of Democrats disapproving in 2021. Pew does not track immigration attitudes every year.
The report comes against a backdrop of immigration taking center stage across the board. House Republicans voted Tuesday to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his handling of migrant border crossings, while Senate Republicans blocked a border security deal last week — officially ending the unsuccessful talks to shore up border protections that went on for four months.
Immigration was also a hot-button issue in the New York special election to fill former Rep. George Santos' seat Tuesday, which saw former Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi notch a resounding win with a tough-on-the-border stance.
Biden has faced continued criticism as the number of people crossing the border has reached record levels during his administration. On Tuesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that the number of people crossing illegally from Mexico dropped by 50 percent in January.
Before Senate Republicans tanked the border security deal last week, Biden said in a statement that he was “ready to solve the problem” and “secure the border.”
“Do they want to solve the problem?” Biden said. “Or do they want to keep playing politics with the border? I’ve made my decision.”
As the bill looked doomed to advance earlier this month, Biden said, "Every day between now and November, the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.”
The Pew report also found that 78 percent of Americans surveyed say the large number of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. at the southern border is either a "crisis" or a "major problem." Those numbers are consistent with polls that have shown voters putting the situation at the southern border among their top concerns.
The Pew Research Center surveyed 5,140 adults from Jan. 16-21. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 1.7 percentage points.
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