A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday revealed that 51 percent of Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s plan to fast track deportations for unaccompanied Central American children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border. The online poll had a sample size of 1,566 people.
The poll showed a divide in public opinion over how long the children should be allowed to remain in the U.S. Thirty-eight percent of responders said that the children should be allowed to stay “until it was deemed safe for them to return home,” while 13 percent supported an indefinite stay and 32 percent favored immediate removal. The results broke down along party lines, with 48 percent of Democrats, 30 percent of Republicans and 37 percent of independents supporting allowing the children to stay until conditions are safer.
The latest roadblock in addressing the border crisis has been the lack of legal representation available to the minors—many of whom are under the age of 14—during their immigration hearings. Vice President Joe Biden made an appeal to law firms to allow their lawyers to provide pro bono representation to these children after House Republicans stripped federal funding for the legal counsel of the unaccompanied minors on August 1.
The credibility interval of the Reuters/Ipsos poll was plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
