Poll: 64% Of Likely Voters Support Obama's Immigration Policy
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Just days after President Barack Obama announced his decision to end the deportations of some illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children; voters are giving him high marks on the move.
According to a new Bloomberg News poll, 64 percent of likely voters said they agreed with the president's decision compared to 30 percent who said they disagreed. In the Bloomberg poll, independents said they backed the decision by a 2-1 margin.
The poll suggested that Republicans may have fallen into a political trap with the president in a very tough election year. President Obama's executive order didn't need Congress' approval for the move and it painted the legislative branch as a do-nothing Congress due to obstructionism.
Additionally, part of Obama's plan mirrored the idea Senator Marco Rubio had been touting at speaking engagements. Senator Rubio dragged his feet on getting a mini-DREAM Act before Congress and the president acted.
Republicans also were faced with the unenviable situation of having to attack the president's move without looking anti-Hispanic at the same time. It's forced the GOP into some tightrope walking that is tough for any political party.
Mitt Romney, the likely GOP nominee, hasn't come out forcefully on the issue. Romney's campaign has been built largely on a hard-line anti-immigration stance that helped him shore up support among the GOP's most conservative voters.
In the Bloomberg poll, 56 percent of Republicans said they opposed the decision, while 86 percent of Democrats supported it. Perhaps most importantly for both parties, 66 percent of independents supported the change in policy.
The Bloomberg poll had a margin of error of +/- 3.6 percent.
