(The Center Square) – With President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both visiting Texas on Thursday to advocate for their respective border and immigration policies, polls show that a majority of Americans, and Texans, including Hispanic and Black Texans, support Trump’s policies.
The majority of American voters say they support building a border wall, a policy Trump implemented that Biden ended on his first day in office, according to a newly released Monmouth University Polling Institute report.
“Public concern about illegal immigration is higher during President Joe Biden’s term than it was under the prior two administrations,” the institute said.
It also noted that “a majority of Americans support building a border wall for the first time since” the institute began asking the question in 2015. Nearly half of voters surveyed said a Democratic-led U.S. Senate border bill “is not tough enough on illegal immigration.”
More than 80% of voters polled said illegal immigration is “either a very serious (61%) or somewhat serious (23%) problem,” according to the institute. Sixty percent said “it as a very serious problem,” an increase from polls taken at the end of the Obama administration through the midpoint of the Trump administration, the poll notes.
A majority of independents, 58%, say illegal immigration is “a very serious problem,” the poll found, up from 43% in 2019. Democrats are also increasingly concerned: 41% say it’s a serious problem, up from 26% in 2019.
A majority surveyed, 53%, support the federal government building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, compared to 46% who oppose it. This is up from sentiments expressed during the Trump administration, when 44% expressed support.
Texas began building its own border wall, the first state to do so, under Gov. Greg Abbott after the Biden administration halted federal wall construction.
Roughly one-third polled, 32%, said illegal foreign nationals are more likely than American citizens to commit violent crimes, including rape and murder. This is up from 21% who held the same view in 2019.
Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said the results “illustrate why the [U.S. Senate] border deal was dead on arrival. The vast majority of rank-and-file Republicans and many independents believe it is too soft on illegal immigration, even if they don’t know exactly what’s in the legislation.”
The bill would have codified mass migration, expanded parole policies created by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, for which he was impeached, and made it difficult for states to sue stripping them of their right to self-defense, Texas officials argued.
A University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll found that the majority of Texans, including Hispanics and Blacks, support building a wall and border security measures. It also found that Democrats in Texas are increasingly supporting Trump. Texas Democrats first expressed 12% support for Trump in December 2022, which has since increased to over 15% as of this month.
The majority of Hispanic Texas voters polled, 56%, support Texas building its own border wall and repairing walls or physical barriers at its border with Mexico, according to the UT/TPP poll. By comparison, 34% oppose it.
The majority of Black Texans, 55%, also support it compared to 30% who don’t.
Overall, 65% of all Texas voters said they support Texas building its own wall and barriers compared to 28% who oppose it.
A majority of Texans, 57%, also support Texas installing marine buoys in the Rio Grande River compared to 36% who don’t.
Two-thirds of Texas voters – 66% – said they support deploying additional state police and military resources to the border, compared to 27% who oppose it.
Among them, a majority of Black and Hispanic Texas voters support it: 57% and 51%, respectively.
A majority of Hispanic Texas voters, 56%, also disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of immigration and border security, compared to 26% who approve.
The presidents’ visits to Texas and polling data comes in an election year when Democratic-run states and cities have complained about increased financial costs and public safety stemming from Biden administration border policies.
Texas has borne the brunt of the crisis, with nearly 100 counties declaring an invasion and/or a state of emergency.
The Texas legislature has allocated over $11.6 billion to fund Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star. Through it, OLS officials have apprehended over 501,000 illegal foreign nationals and made more than 39,800 criminal arrests, with more than 35,800 felony charges reported, according to the latest data from the governor’s office.
They’ve also seized more than 467 million lethal doses of fentanyl, enough to kill everyone in the United States and Canada.
Their efforts continue “to fill the dangerous gaps created by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border,” Abbott said.
