On immigration, a shocking poll result that should not have been shocking

I saw something in the recent Gallup Poll on immigration that shocked me: “Support for allowing undocumented immigrants to become U.S. citizens has risen to 78%, up from 70% last year. This is also back to the level of support seen in 2019 (81%) while slightly lower than in 2016 (84%). Approval is higher still, albeit statistically unchanged, for offering individuals brought to the U.S. illegally as children [DACA] a pathway to citizenship, with support holding above 80%.”

I say “shocked,” but I should not have been. In a column on this subject in 2019 and in subsequent commentary, I cited a FOX News poll showing that about 83 percent of voters supported a system for “all illegal immigrants who are currently working in the country to become legal residents.”

Despite having mentioned this result, I had failed to remember it, and I think I know why. As a longtime advocate of this approach, in my column in The Baltimore Sun, I had heard almost exclusively from the opposition: “What part of illegal alien don’t you understand?”

People who feel that way are loud, and the right-wing echo chamber has always amplified their voices. Last summer, at the Republican National Convention, there was a sea of “Mass Deportation Now!” signs.

But that commonly expressed sentiment apparently represents MAGA World — or only about two to three out of 10 Americans, a distinct minority.

If Gallup is even within 10 points of being accurate here, then the aggressive and cruel approach that Trump and Stephen Miller launched this year is distinctly not what the vast majority of Americans want. There’s a huge disconnect between how most of us — Republican, Independent and Democrat — think the immigration impasse should be resolved and how Trump and MAGA want it resolved: with ICE goon squads, mass deportations that split up families, and no amnesty.

Clearly, Trump and Miller, along with others in the administration, are conducting a racist purge of people whose only crime was the misdemeanor of crossing the border to seek a better life here.

And most Americans see that.

“Support is also lower today for deporting all undocumented immigrants, with 38% now favoring this as the administration is attempting it, down from 47% last year when it was a Trump campaign promise,” Gallup concluded from its recent survey.

Amnesty and citizenship would be a way of ending this nightmare of masked ICE agents arresting people who are just living and working here. It would also simply acknowledge facts of life — that there are millions of people who entered the country without authorization; they contribute to their communities and the greater economy, and they should not live in fear of deportation.

We’ve had an offer of amnesty and citizenship before.

In the spring of 1988, President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, and the Congress offered freedom to undocumented immigrants under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. About 3 million immigrants came out of the shadows and signed up.

When he ran for re-election in 1984, Reagan said: “I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.”

When Democrats get back in control in Washington, they need to get an amnesty-citizenship bill passed. They will have the support of a vast majority of Americans, confirming that, despite all, most of us still have common sense and a sense of decency.