About half of U.S. voters oppose the proposal to place immigrants who are in the country illegally in detention camps while they await deportation, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. The data suggests that Americans may be wary of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's plans to punish illegal immigrants more severely.
About 54% of registered voters opposed the use of detention camps, while 36% supported such a measure and 10% said they did not know or did not respond, according to the poll. Still, 56% said most or all immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally should be deported.
Trump has made cracking down on illegal immigration a centerpiece of his re-election campaign against Democratic President Joe Biden. Immigration has emerged as a top issue for voters, especially Republicans, in the run-up to the Nov. 5 election.
The New York Times reported last year that former President Trump, if re-elected, plans to build large camps to hold immigrants awaiting possible deportation.
In an interview with Time magazine published in April, Trump said he would consider using the camps but that “there wouldn’t be as much need for them” because people would be quickly deported.
Tom Homan, a former Trump immigration official who could be part of a second administration, said the camps would be needed as more illegal immigrants were arrested and detained for deportation, exceeding existing detention space.
“We’re going to have to keep them somewhere,” he said in an interview.
Homan said these housing facilities would follow detention standards set by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and would not be “concentration camps.”
Homan said National Guard troops could potentially support deportation operations, but that law enforcement would need to make the arrests.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt did not comment on the possible use of these camps in a statement to Reuters, but said Trump would “mobilize all federal and state powers necessary to institute the largest deportation operation in American history.” .
Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election by promising to reverse many of Trump's hard-line immigration policies, but struggled to deal with the record number of migrants caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Biden has toughened his approach to the border as the election approaches.
Biden campaign spokeswoman Maca Casado said in a statement that Americans “want border security and immigration solutions, not the cruel and ineffective chaos that Donald Trump is delivering.”
ICE stepped up deportations late last year, with 66,000 people removed from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2023, according to agency statistics, a much more aggressive pace than in other years under Biden.
About 85% of Republican voters in the Reuters/Ipsos poll said most or all illegal immigrants in the U.S. should be deported, compared with 26% of Democrats and 61% of independents.
But fewer voters agreed with the statement that immigrants who are in the country illegally should be arrested and placed in detention camps while they await deportation hearings.
About 62% of registered Republicans said they agreed, compared with 12% of Democrats and 35% of independents.
The survey, conducted online, interviewed 3,208 registered voters across the country. The margins of error were about 2 percentage points for responses from all registered voters, about 3 points for registered Republicans and Democrats, and about 4 points for independents.
Source: CNN Brasil
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