A Surprising Number of Americans Are Opposed to Immigration

Brynn Anderson/AP
Impact

The United States of America, a country that has largely been built by immigrants, is still overwhelmingly opposed to immigration.

To be more precise, 61% of people agree with the statement "continued immigration into the country jeopardizes the United States," based on a new poll reported by Bloomberg Business. The poll had 2,590 respondents and was conducted by the consulting firm A.T. Kearney and market research company NPD Group.

Those numbers aren't so surprising given the fact that Donald Trump has established himself as the presumptive Republican nominee for president. "Given what's going on in the national discourse and the desperate state of national politics ... it makes people vulnerable to jingoistic sloganeering," Paul Laudicina, chairman of the Global Business Policy Council at A.T. Kearney, said in an interview with Bloomberg. 

Brynn Anderson/AP

Trump singled out immigration early on in his campaign. In June, Trump stirred up a national controversy by calling immigrants rapists and proposing to build a "big and beautiful wall" on the southern border. Since then, his deeply anti-immigrant sentiment has made him popular with right-wing supporters — much to the chagrin of the party's establishment. It's also energized Latino voters, and even immigrants themselves who are eager to gain citizenship so they can vote against Trump. 

Even months away from the nomination, and Trump is already changing America.