A majority of Americans are dissatisfied with immigration levels to the United States, according to a new Gallup poll.
The poll, released Thursday, reveals that 60 percent of Americas say they are dissatisfied with the current level of immigration into the United States. Just 33 percent said they were satisfied.
In a follow up question probing whether that dissatisfaction was because the level of immigration was too high or too low, just 7 percent said they wanted to see more immigration, while 39 percent said they wanted the level of immigration to decrease.
The overall extent of dissatisfaction increased six percentage points over the last year, but did not match the poll’s highest level of dissatisfaction, 72 percent, registered in January 2008.
The increase in dissatisfaction comes as Republicans in Congress battle President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.
Another recent poll from Paragon Insights found widespread opposition to Obama’s unilateral move to provide legal status and work permits to millions of illegal immigrants and support for congressional efforts to block those edicts.
Gallup’s poll did not probe opiniions about Obama’s executive actions, but did reveal the level of dissatisfaction with immigration levels among Republicans at an all time high for the poll, at 84 percent. Independents expressed a 54 percent level of dissatisfaction and 44 percent of Democrats said they were dissatisfied.
In its analysis of the results, Gallup acknowledged that Obama’s executive actions might be a contributing factor to the poll’s results, noting that “[t]he president’s disputed actions may have had some effect on how Americans perceive immigration levels, providing Republicans additional fodder with which to challenge the president.”
Gallup’s poll was conducted from January 5-8 with a random sample of 804 adults living in the United States and has a margin of error of +/-4 percentage points.