The majority of working-class Americans say the country’s mass legal and illegal immigration policies are driving up crime in the United States, a new survey finds.
The latest Gallup survey finds that among Americans with less than a college degree, more than one-in-two, or 51 percent, said immigration to the U.S. has made crime across the country worse. About 41 percent said immigration has not had much impact on crime, and only seven percent said immigration has decreased crime.
Overall, more Americans say immigration is driving up crime than those who say immigration is decreasing crime. About 42 percent of Americans said immigration makes crime worse, while about 50 percent said immigration has no impact on crime. Only seven percent of Americans believe immigration decreases crime.
Among political groups, 73 percent of Republicans and 65 percent of conservative voters said immigration is making crime worse in the U.S. Though a majority of swing voters said immigration has no impact on crime, about 35 percent said the country’s policy of admitting about 1.2 million legal immigrants every year is increasing crime.
The Gallup survey has revealed the increasing divide between the working class’s concerns regarding mass immigration and wealthier, upper-middle-class Americans’ insistence that immigration has no impact on American life.
For example, working-class and lower-middle-class Americans — those with high school diplomas, less than a high school diploma, or some college credits — are the most likely to say immigration drives up crime, while fewer than three-in-ten college graduates said the same.
Likewise, between 45 percent to 48 percent of working-class and lower-middle-class Americans said immigration is a burden on their tax dollars. Meanwhile, a plurality of college graduates said immigration has no impact on their taxes.
Every year, American taxpayers are burdened by the cost of criminal foreign nationals who have either illegally or legally entered the country. As Breitbart News has reported, foreign-born inmates in federal custody cost American taxpayers about $1.42 billion every year, according to the most recent data collected by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
About one-in-four federal inmates are foreign-born residents, comprising 25 percent of the total federal prison population with nearly 60,000 inmates being either illegal or legal immigrants.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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