Poll: After 35-day shutdown, 60% of Americans against border wall

Donald Trump. File photo: Flickr/Gage Skidmore

Feb. 4 (UPI) — Barely a week after the federal government reopened from a 35-day shutdown, a new survey shows the majority of Americans say they oppose building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Gallup survey asked more than 1,000 adults from all 50 states if they support the wall, which is a key priority of President Donald Trump‘s. Sixty percent of respondents opposed such a border barrier — with 39 percent “strongly” opposing it. Forty percent said they favored a wall, of which 26 percent “strongly” support it.

The 60 percent figure is a 3 percent increase over the last time Gallup asked the question last June. Its statistical insignificance, within the poll’s margin of error of four points, indicates the shutdown had little effect on public opinion about a border wall.

Trump said multiple times during the shutdown that most furloughed and unpaid government workers told him they supported the federal stoppage for a border wall — a claim that’s been roundly questioned.

Gallup measuring pubic opinion on a border wall long predates Trump’s administration. The majority have opposed a wall since the pollster first asked the question in 1993. In June 2016, after then-candidate Trump first proposed a physical wall along the entire southern border, 66 percent of respondents opposed it.

The poll has also demonstrated an importance of immigration issues to U.S. citizens, as 21 percent called it the country’s most important problem. In November, 78 percent ranked immigration among the top three issues of importance.

Gallup’s survey also showed 81 percent of Americans said immigrants living in the United States should be given a chance at citizenship. Three-quarters said they approve of heightened border security, and 61 percent oppose deporting all immigrants who’ve entered the United States unlawfully.

 

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