Americans divided on how many immigrants, asylum-seekers should be allowed into country: poll

Americans remain largely divided on how many immigrants and asylum-seekers should be allowed to enter the country, according to a new poll released on Tuesday.

Forty-four percent in the poll from The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research said they think fewer immigrants should be allowed into the U.S., while 34 percent said it should remain the same. Another 20 percent said immigration should increase.

The numbers are largely the same on asylum, with 43 percent saying the U.S. should reduce the number of asylum-seekers. However, there is a slight increase in the portion that said asylum should increase, at 24 percent, while 30 percent said it should remain the same, the poll found. 

Republicans are much more likely to support a decrease in both overall immigration and asylum, with 65 percent and 68 percent saying as much respectively. 

Democrats, on the other hand, are fairly split on both issues. They are more likely to support the status quo on immigration, with 42 percent saying immigration should remain the same, compared to the 27 percent each said it should either increase or decrease.

However, Democrats are slightly more likely to favor an increase in asylum, with 37 percent expressing support for an increase and 36 percent approving of the status quo. Another 26 percent said there should be a decrease in the number of asylum-seekers.

Public support for immigration overall appears to have waned since the early days of the Biden administration. 

An AP-NORC poll from March 2021 found that 41 percent of Americans supported the status quo on immigration, while 28 percent thought it should increase and 29 percent thought it should decrease.

Republicans have hammered the Biden administration on its response to an increased influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. There were more than 250,000 encounters at the southern border in December, the highest point of Biden’s presidency, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). 

Border encounters dipped substantially in January to around 150,000, which the administration has attributed to several new asylum policies.

The AP-NORC poll was conducted Feb. 16-20 with 1,247 adults and had a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.