Politics

Focus Group Suggests Trump Has Edge On Key Immigration Issues

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A focus group of swing voters voiced agreement with some of President Donald Trump’s key immigration positions and mimicked his “America First” brand.

“Why would you want to give [health care] to another person from a different country for free?” said Larry S., one of a handful of swing voters who spoke about pressing political issues to an Engagious/FPG focus group, reported Axios.

Engagious spoke to 12 swing voters, nine Obama-Trump voters and three Romney-Clinton voters, in Warren, Michigan, a politically divided city within a major swing state.

Not only did a majority of the respondents believe that Trump is “professionally and responsibly” managing the immigration crisis, but many of them also expressed outright disdain for immigration positions taken up by numerous Democratic presidential candidates. Namely, many respondents opposed the idea of giving free health care to illegal immigrants.

“Give them free benefits, this that and the other thing. That is ridiculous,” Rhonda H. stated. “They’ll come from anywhere and get a house and a car, too.”

“Veterans … need more help. So that kind of, that doesn’t make me happy that they really haven’t done more” for them, Kathleen R. said of the issue.

Eight of the 12 participates, including one Romney-Clinton voter, agreed with the following statement: “When we give migrants food, clothing, toiletries, and shelter, all we’re doing is encouraging more of them to come to the U.S., and we don’t want that.”

Such rhetoric closely mirrors the sentiment emanating out of the Trump administration. A large goal of immigration agencies has not only been to remove illegal immigrants and block them from entering the U.S., but to also disincentivize illegal immigration altogether.

A majority of Democratic presidential candidates have expressed support for providing illegal immigrants with taxpayer-funded health care, and support decriminalizing illegal immigration. Julian Castro, an alum of the Obama administration and a Democratic presidential candidate himself, said he would take this a step further by repealing the law that makes it a felony to illegally enter the U.S. more than once.

Such actions, officials argue, would only deepen the crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Everything they said about decriminalizing illegal entry, offering medical care for illegal aliens, they are talking about abolishing ICE, all of this rhetoric from the Democratic presidential candidates – it’s not going to help the crisis at the border. The last thing they should be doing is offering more incentives to come here,” Thomas Homan, a former chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said to the Daily Caller News Foundation in July in response to the first Democratic presidential debates.

Jeh Johnson, President Barack Obama’s own Homeland Security Secretary, said border decriminalization was “tantamount to declaring publicly that we have open borders,” and something that is not supported by the majority of the American people.