Majority of Americans

Pew study: Majority of Americans still oppose Trump's wall

By Nick Gass

Donald Trump has vowed that there will be a wall on the United States’ border with Mexico if and when he is president — “100 percent,” as he put it to Sean Hannity on Tuesday.

But the percentage of Americans backing the edifice in a new Pew Research Center study on attitudes about immigration released Thursday is far lower: 36 percent.

More than six in 10 — 61 percent — of the thousands of adults surveyed, said they oppose the construction of a wall along the entire border with Mexico, as Trump has proposed throughout his campaign. And 34 percent of voters identifying themselves as Republican or leaning toward the GOP said they opposed the wall, with 63 percent supporting.

The results are statistically unchanged from earlier this year, when a 10-day Pew survey in March found that 62 percent of all Americans opposed the erection of the wall and 34 percent favor the idea.

Support for the wall’s construction remains sharply split along demographic and ideological lines, between backers of Trump and Hillary Clinton, with 54 percent of whites in opposition and 43 percent in favor. But 76 percent each of blacks and Hispanics surveyed said they opposed the wall, with 20 percent and 22 percent in favor, respectively. The low level of support among blacks and Hispanics actually represents a slight uptick from March, when 13 percent and 16 percent expressed support for it.

Among self-identified Democrats and those leaning toward the party, more than eight in 10 — 84 percent — said they opposed the wall, with just 14 percent approving of it.

Nearly eight in 10 Trump supporters — 79 percent — said they back the wall, while 18 percent said they opposed it. But those who strongly favor Trump supported the wall 91 percent to 8 percent, with 67 percent those identifying themselves as moderate or leaning toward Trump in favor and 29 percent of that group opposed.

Almost nine in 10 Clinton backers — 88 percent — said they did not want the wall to be built, while 10 percent said they would actually favor its construction. Among those who called themselves strong Clinton supporters, 7 percent said they would still favor the wall, compared with 91 percent who would not.

Overall, 76 percent of all adults surveyed said undocumented immigrants are just as hard-working and honest as U.S. citizens, while 67 percent said they are no more likely than citizens to commit serious crimes. Another 71 percent said undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs that U.S. citizens do not want, with similar results for all three questions along racial and ideological lines.

But among Trump supporters, a comparatively smaller 35 percent said undocumented immigrants take jobs citizens do not want, while 33 percent said they are not as honest or hardworking as U.S. citizens, and 50 percent said they are more likely than citizens to commit serious crimes. The stronger the support for Trump, the likelier the supporter was to give an unfavorable impression of undocumented immigrants.

Trump has repeatedly framed immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, as a threat to the job security and well-being of existing U.S. citizens. At a rally Wednesday in Jackson, Mississippi, he said that Clinton "would rather give a job to a refugee from overseas than to an unemployed American veteran" and that "her push for open borders will lower the wages and kill the jobs of lawful American residents."

The Pew survey was conducted via landlines and cellphones from Aug. 9-16, surveying 2,010 adults nationwide with an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. The sample includes 831 who identified themselves as Republican or leaning Republican, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points, and 987 Democrats and leaners with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points. Among the 680 Clinton supporters surveyed, the margin of error is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points, while for the 581 Trump backers polled, the margin of error is plus or minus 4.6 percentage points.