“Immigration Splits America”. . . Not Really

The AP is pushing a new article that tell us that we, as a nation, are truly “split” on immigration. This article is based on a poll conducted by the AP and Univision. The AP’s spin is garbage. Even a cursory examination of the poll shows that Americans are amazingly unified on this issue. . . just not in the way the AP wants.

This poll broke out its results into two groups: Hispanics and non-Hispanics. And check out these results:

• 66% of both Hispanics and non-Hispanics consider illegal immigration a serious problem.

• 83% of non-Hispanics believe the federal government should be doing more to stop illegal immigration. (52% of Hispanics)

• Only 20% of non-Hispanics oppose Arizona’s new law. (67% of Hispanics)

• Only 30% of non-Hispanics hope their states don’t pass the same law Arizona did. (70% of Hispanics)

• 62% of non-Hispanics think that being in the U.S. illegally should be considered a serious crime. (24% of Hispanics)

• Only 46% of non-Hispanics think that police crackdowns are likely to target Hispanics unfairly. (73% of Hispanics)

• Only 35% of non-Hispanics believe that illegal immigrants “mostly contribute” to society. (74% of Hispanics)

The headline and the story focus on the supposed “split,” but the real story here is the level of uniformity. Americans have varied opinions and it is exceedingly rare that you ever get more than 60% support for any position. In this case, we are well beyond that. Excluding Hispanics, we are looking at between 66% and 80% of Americans who believe that illegal immigration is a problem, that more needs to be done, and that Arizona has done the right thing.

That’s incredible. If a similar number had come out in favor of ObamaCare, the headlines would have screamed about “stunning uniformity” and “entire population favors.” The limited dissenters would have been dismissed as fringe idiots and cranks. But here, because the AP doesn’t like that uniformity, it ignores that story.

Moreover, it tries to create a “split” by comparing non-Hispanics to Hispanics. But that’s hardly relevant. First, there are only 46 million Hispanics in this country compared to around 270 million non-Hispanics. If 6 of your 7 friends agreed on something, would you say that your friend are “split”? Further, one third of Hispanics are here illegally. Excluding those changes the ratio from 6/7 to 8/9. Also, presumably, these illegals will vote for self-interest in the poll, thus we must assume that the Hispanic numbers are themselves skewed and that missing number nine is more like a half.

And even if we assume that somehow the pollsters got only legally-resident Hispanics for this poll, the Hispanic numbers are themselves not as unified as presented by the AP. Indeed, a sizeable minority of Hispanics, around 30% to 40%, think just like the vast majority of non-Hispanics. Again, let us assume this was 30%-40% of Republicans supporting ObamaCare; wouldn’t the headlines have been “strong bipartisan support for ObamaCare”? Yet, somehow this qualifies as unified opposition and creates this vast split within the country. . . between your eight friends and the one dissenter.

So what are the lessons here? First, that the AP continues to be a political organization, not a journalistic one. Secondly, that the American public is remarkably unified on this issues, across all races and the entire political spectrum; they are fed up and they want something done. And third, that the left is barking up the wrong tree when they are attacking Arizona.

Finally, here's an interesting thought. Arizona's new law enjoys this massive amount of support despite the best efforts of the MSM to present the law in as draconian a manner as possible. That means that either the public no longer listens to the MSM or the public supports the draconian version of the law presented by the MSM. Either way, that's a loser for the left.

Good for us.