Despite strong calls by some conservatives for tighter border control and deportation of illegal immigrants, likely Republican voters favor giving citizenship to millions of undocumented workers, according to a poll released Monday.
The poll of 800 voters nationwide was commissioned by the Manhattan Institute in New York and conducted by the Tarrance Group.
The findings were released on the eve of comprehensive immigration reform hearings scheduled for today by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao are scheduled to speak.
But Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters Monday that the Senate is sidetracked with Supreme Court nominees and hurricanes and will not take on comprehensive immigration reform until January, the Associated Press reported.
Deportation "did not get a lot of traction," with those polled, Tamar Jacoby, senior fellow at the institute, told reporters during a telephone news conference. "I don't think people think it's realistic. ... They are not interested in ideology or punishment. They want a solution."
The key finding was that 72 percent of voters favor a plan in which illegal immigrants could pay a fine and become temporary workers. Those polled also said they favored illegal immigrants becoming citizens if they learned English, paid taxes and did not commit crimes. But respondents said they also wanted more resources to protect the border and tougher penalties for employers who hire illegal workers.
"I would have to say that ... No. 1, people see a problem. No. 2, they see that we cannot send back 11-million people," said Ed Goeas, principal at the Tarrance Group, a well-respected Republican polling firm. "No. 3, they want a solution that works. And No. 4, they want that solution enforced."
Republican elected officials have long been divided over what to do about illegal immigration.
At one end of the spectrum is a proposal by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would legalize illegal workers and open up a path toward citizenship. At the other is Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., and others who call for increased border control and deporting illegal immigrants already here.
On Monday, some said the poll's findings did not reflect Republican voters' views because the survey asked leading questions.
"The way they asked the questions tended to influence the results," said Jack Martin, special projects director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Martin said the poll gave voters a "false choice" between the massive deportation of 11-million people or giving them citizenship. Martin said no proposal being discussed would entail a mass deportation effort.
Instead, he said illegal immigrants would go home gradually if the federal government began to prosecute employers who hire them. He said cutting off illegal immigrants from drivers' licenses and other benefits also would force them to leave.
Ira Mehlman, also of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, noted that the poll used the word "earned legalization" as opposed to "amnesty."
The people polled would have been less receptive to suggestions of amnesty, Mehlman said, because the amnesty of the 1980s is seen as a failed attempt to curb illegal immigration.
"As soon as you say amnesty, it's a word that people don't like," he said.
The poll also showed that 59 percent of the respondents approve of the Minutemen Project, an Arizona-based group whose volunteer members patrol the border in the Southwest.
That finding, the pollsters said, reflects a widespread clamor by Americans for government to find a solution to illegal immigration.
