Tipsheet

Poll: As Obama Digs In, Americans Strongly Reject His Refugee Policy

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  November 19, 2015 10:20 AM

A Bloomberg poll taken after after the Paris terrorist attacks finds that a significant majority of Americans oppose President Obama's status quo policy on Syrian refugees. The survey was published before reports emerged that Honduran officials detained five Syrian nationals attempting to enter the United States using stolen passports. Awkwardly, roughly two-thirds of Americans hold views that Obama would cast as un-American or aiding ISIS recruitment:

Most Americans want the U.S. to stop letting in Syrian refugees amid fears of terrorist infiltrations after the Paris attacks, siding with Republican presidential candidates, governors, and lawmakers who want to freeze the Obama administration’s resettlement program...Fifty-three percent of U.S. adults in the survey, conducted in the days immediately following the attacks, say the nation should not continue a program to resettle up to 10,000 Syrian refugees. Just 28 percent would keep the program with the screening process as it now exists, while 11 percent said they would favor a limited program to accept only Syrian Christians while excluding Muslims, a proposal Obama has dismissed as “shameful” and un-American.

In other words, fully 64 percent of respondents favor the Paul Ryan or Ted Cruz approach, while less than one-third side with the president.  Democrats are split down the middle (45/46).  A few additional findings from the poll: (1) Obama's overall approval rating dropped to (44/51), with the right track/wrong track number sitting at an abysmal (23/69).  (2) Americans are evenly divided on whether to send ground troops into Iraq or Syria to combat ISIS, which Jeb Bush just endorsed. The Obama administration has already increased the number of Special Forces boots on the ground in the region.  The latest NYT/CBS poll, which was in the field prior to Paris, contained some similarly-ugly data points for our flailing president:


Politico is reporting that the White House is preparing to issue a veto threat over the House's common-sense bill pausing the inflow of Syrian refugees until vetting standards are beefed up and certified. With Democrats divided and the American people swinging hard against Obama's current posture, this is a battle Republicans are happy to wage. How will the Left respond? With more pablum and insults, of course, but also with something far more powerful -- a White House-endorsed hashtag campaign:


"Smart power" is beyond parody. Given Obama's ugly penchant for directing his angriest diatribes at Republicans (here's Rubio torching him for that last night), I'll leave you with this question.  Discuss amongst yourselves:


"Bitter and graceless," indeed.