DonaldTrump made immigration the centerpiece of his campaign and offered a more comprehensivepolicy outline than on any other issue.
In the past, immigration has largelybeen seen as a positive force for the economy and an essential part of thecountry´s legacy, according to the terminology of previous presidents. PresidentTrump, on the other hand, is addressing immigration as a major threat to thenational security and economy of the American people. PresidentTrump has sanctioned dramatic reductions to legal immigration during his firstyear in office. To restrict illegal immigration, one of his key campaignpromises is to build a wall alongside the U.S.
-Mexico border, which he furtherwants Mexico to pay for. The current American view about theUS-Mexico border is pretty clear. According to several surveys that were carriedout in 2017, there is a nearly two-to-one opinion on the proposed wall, as 61% opposebuilding a wall along the border to try to stop illegal immigration, while onlyone third (36%) of the population favor. 59% do not even believe that Trumpwill build this wall at all, and 66% oppose building it if the US governmentand its citizens have to fund the policy, as Mexico has refused to do so.
The proposed border wall has alsoshown to result in a deep divide along partisan lines. According to a Pewresearch a survey conducted in March 2016 shows how 63% of Republicans favorbuilding a wall, while 33% oppose. In contrast, democrats overwhelmingly opposewith 84% against, while only 13 favors.According to the graphs taken from IPollRoper American citizens voted on whether to build a wallalong the Mexican border or not. The figure shows that throughout the last fourdecades the public opinion on this issue have had a tremendous change. In 1986,a survey showed that 80% believed that the Mexican border should have higherpatrol to keep illegal immigrants out, while only 15% opposed increasing patrolon the Mexican border.
Later in 1993, if the idea of building a fence cameforwards, and one can find a significant decline of votes who favored to buildthe fence (29%), whereas 68% of people were opposing this strategy. In 2006,the views equalized, and one can observe that the favorable opinion off a fencerose to 46% and the opposing decreased to a 48%. In the last survey of 2017,one can see a new trend again.
First of all, the term fence has been switch outwith “wall” as a result of new immigration policy proposed by the currentpresident Donald Trump. The public opinion is moving back to the same trend asin the 90´s where we see a pattern of 2-1, where only 29% favor, and 68 oppose