Poll: Majority of Americans Blame Illegal Alien Parents When Their Children Are Separated at Border

The majority of Americans say they blame illegal alien parents when their children are separated from them at the United States-Mexico border, a new poll finds.

The latest Rasmussen Reports poll reveals that nearly 55 percent of likely American voters said illegal aliens are at fault for “breaking the law” when their children “are arrested and separated after attempting to enter the United States illegally.”

Only about 35 percent of Americans said the federal government is to blame when border crossing children are taken from their border crossing parents, while 11 percent said they were not sure who was to blame.

Poor Americans, the working class, and middle class are the most likely to say that illegal alien parents are to blame when their children are separated from them at the border.

About 56 percent of Americans earning less than $30,000 a year said illegal alien parents were to blame, not the federal government, for child separation at the border. Meanwhile, about 54 percent of Americans earning $30,000 t0 $50,000 and $50,000 to $100,000 say they too blame the illegal alien parents.

Trump’s zero tolerance policy mandates that all illegal border crossers — including illegal alien adults who cross the border with children — be prosecuted and eventually deported from the U.S. This policy results in border-crossing parents having their children taken into federal custody. This is a loophole known as the Flores Settlement Agreement.

In an executive order this week, Trump directly challenged the Flores Settlement Agreement, which argues that child border crossers cannot be held for longer than 20 days. The executive order, though, seeks to allow those children and their border crossing parents to be detained together in DHS facilities while they are prosecuted and eventually deported from the U.S.

To deal with the floods of border crossers being prosecuted, the Trump executive order has asked the Department of Defense to hand over detention space that can be used to detain border crossing families.