What should be done about illegal immigration?

The only people left will be the bigots in the south and the Tea Party.

More Americans say the Democratic Party better represents their feelings on immigration than Republicans do, according to a new poll Monday.

In the Gallup survey, 48 percent of adults polled picked the Democrats’ policies on immigration reform as resembling their own; 36 percent picked the GOP.

That split was largely driven by minorities, Gallup found. Among non-Hispanic whites, preference was nearly dead even, with 41 percent for the Democrats and 42 percent for the GOP. Hispanics, however, supported Democrats 60 percent to 26 percent, and non-Hispanic blacks supported Democrats 70 percent to 14 percent.

The party preference is also nearly even among people who identify as independent: Thirty-seven percent said the Democrats better represented them, compared to 35 percent who chose Republicans.


Gallup polled 4,373 adults by phone from June 13 to July 5 for the survey, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. That error margin is higher, however, when results are broken down by race: plus or minus 3 percentage points for whites, 5 points for blacks and 6 points for Hispanics.

Rep. Paul Ryan said Thursday that Republicans are taking care not to “push” illegal immigrants to become American citizens as part of any comprehensive immigration reform package.

“We don’t want to push people into citizenship,” Ryan said in an interview with KFYR 550 in Bismarck, N.D.

Ryan said immigrants are more interested in finding jobs than in becoming citizens.

“Most people just want to have a legal status so they can work to provide for their families,” he said.

Ryan has stepped up as an important advocate for immigration reform among House Republicans as he has sought to bridge the gap between the moderate and conservative members of his conference.