April 11, 2007

David Redlawsk/Caroline Tolbert offer misleading University of Iowa immigration poll

Who knew? According to a misleading poll that offers a bit of a false choice conducted by David Redlawsk and Caroline Tolbert (associate professors of political science in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences), a majority of Iowans prefer "earned citizenship", aka a massive amnesty. From the press release:

...In the statewide, random poll of 1,290 registered voters conducted March 19-31, 84.9 percent of Democrats and 96.1 percent of Republicans said candidates' stance on immigration is a "very" or "somewhat" important factor in who gets their vote.

The poll also showed that Iowa voters favor "earned citizenship" over other immigration reform options. Earned citizenship was defined as allowing undocumented immigrants to eventually become U.S. citizens if they meet certain criteria, such as learning English and paying back taxes.

Earned citizenship was favored by 56.9 percent of Democrats and 56.7 percent of Republicans. UI political scientists found this level of agreement surprising, given the extensive media coverage of anti-immigration sentiment.

That's odd. The media has seemed quite "pro-immigration" to me, with most strongly supporting illegal activity.

They also were asked to choose which of four options best represents their view on what government policy regarding undocumented immigrants should be: 1) deport all undocumented immigrants, 2) allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the U.S. to work for a limited amount of time (a guest worker program), 3) allow undocumented immigrants to become U.S. citizens if they meet certain requirements like learning English and paying back taxes (earned citizenship), or 4) allow undocumented immigrants to become permanent residents with no requirements (amnesty).

The first choice is not the standard false choice of "massive deportations", but it's close enough. The choice they don't offer is the same one that most pro-illegal immigration hacks don't offer: simply enforcing the current laws combined with rolling back benefits to illegal aliens, causing many or most illegal aliens to self-deport over time.

Feel free to suggest they do better next time: david-redlawsk *at* uiowa.edu and caroline-tolbert *at* uiowa.edu

Posted to Immigration2007a at April 11, 2007 09:24 PM