Fresh off of the Supreme Court ruling on SB 1070 Monday, determining local police can ask about legal status after a crime has been committed, a majority of Americans believe the federal government encourages illegal immigration according to a new Rasmussen Report.
Most voters continue to believe the federal government encourages rather than discourages illegal immigration.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 58% of Likely U.S. Voters think the policies and practices of the federal government encourage illegal immigration. Just 24% disagree, while 18% more are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Forty-one percent (41%) of all voters think it is better to allow individual states to act on their own to enforce immigration laws rather than to rely on the federal government. But 49% believe it’s better to let the federal government enforce immigration laws.
However, 66% believe that states should be allowed to enforce the immigration laws if the federal government is not.
This poll comes after Arizona Governor Jan Brewer described the Obama administration's reaction to the Supreme Court ruling as telling the state to "drop dead," after administration officials instructed I.C.E. to ignore phone calls from local law enforcement about stopped illegals and end the partnership between Arizona and the feds to stop illegal immigration.