Americans Divided Over Obama’s Immigration Moves

Americans are sharply split on their reaction to President Barack Obama’s recent executive actions to protect about five million undocumented immigrants from deportation and give them temporary legal status, according to a new poll.

The Quinnipiac University survey released Tuesday found that 45% of voters support the President’s immigration moves, while 48% oppose them. The poll also shows support for immigrants at its lowest level ever measured by Qunnipiac: 48% of voters say undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay with a path to citizenship, down from 57% in November of 2013. And 35% say undocumented immigrants should be required to leave the U.S., up from 26% a year ago.

“Americans look at immigration reform with ambivalence,” said assistant Quinnipiac polling Tim Malloy said.

Within the Latino community the story is different: A poll conducted by Latino Decisions and commissioned by two pro-immigration reform groups found that almost 90% of Latino voters “support” or “strongly support” Obama’s executive action.

The Quinnipiac poll of 1,623 registered voters, conducted Nov. 18-23, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.