Jan. 17 (UPI) — A Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday found that a majority of people both in favor of and opposed to an expanded physical barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border are not willing to concede their stance to end the 26-day government shutdown.
According to the poll, 88 percent of people opposed to President Donald Trump’s call for a border wall would find it unacceptable to pass a bill that includes $5.7 billion worth of funding for the project to end the shutdown, while 72 percent of people who support the barrier said it would be unacceptable to pass a bill to reopen government that doesn’t include the funding.
Overall, 58 percent of Americans oppose providing funding for an expanded border barrier while 40 percent support the proposal.
The numbers are consistent with previous Pew Research data over the past three years, but the most recent survey of 1,505 adults conducted Jan. 9-14, found that people have become more divided over the issue along partisan lines.
As of Pew’s most recent survey, 82 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents supported Trump’s barrier proposal, up 10 percent over the past year, while the number of Democrats and Democratic leaners who support funding a new physical barrier has decreased from 13 percent to 6 percent.
Views on how serious of an issue the shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history, is were also split along partisan lines, with 79 percent of Democrats considering it a “very serious” issue, compared to 35 percent of Republicans.
On the contrary, Pew’s study found that the nation was unified in its displeasure with how the shutdown has been handled by all parties. Trump and Republicans in Congress received most of the blame with at least 60 percent of people disapproving of how they’ve handled the situation, while 53 percent of respondents expressed disapproval for Democrats.
