It would come as no surprise to any American who is at least a casual watcher of television news or a peruser of the letters to the editor in a daily newspaper that immigration is a topic of great interest these days.
Such has certainly been the case for some years now, that casual observer might easily say.
But it might come as a surprise even to those who keep up with politics and the national news to find that just over the last month there has been a 40% increase in the number of Americans who say that immigration is the No. 1 most important problem facing the United States.
Yet that’s exactly what a survey by our most respected polling agency, Gallup, showed this week.
“Significantly more Americans name immigration as the most important problem facing the U.S. (28%) than did a month ago (20%),” Gallup reported on Tuesday. “Immigration has now passed the government as the most often cited problem, after the two issues tied for the top position the past two months. The government ranked first each month from January through November 2023.”
As something of an aside, it’s almost amusing that the polling organization uses the incredibly generic term “the government” in its questions to the public about what problems are top of mind for them. Is that City Hall, the statehouse, Congress or the White House over one-fifth of Americans have in mind when asked about what things they consider the most important problem? Or is it all the aspects of government, together, writ large, that seem problematic?
In any case, government is going to have to take a backseat to immigration for the time being, because it is firmly No. 2 for now, though at 20% still well ahead of the economy in general (12%), inflation (11%) and poverty/hunger/homelessness (6%) among the citizenry’s top concerns.
It’s not the first time immigration has been No. 1, but it has been five years since that was the case, in 2019, during a time of a surge of attempted border crossings by residents of Central American nations. “Immigration also ranked as the No. 1 problem in July and November 2018 and July 2014,” Gallup says.
Politicians can, and presumably do, read the polling results the same as the rest of us. Both President Joe Biden and his presumptive opponent come November, Donald Trump, made dueling trips to the Mexican border with Texas on Thursday, vying for attention on the issue and getting input from Border Patrol agents about their work.
It’s not hard to see why Americans’ concern about immigration is surging, along with the number of migrants seeking entry. In December a record number — on the order of 300,000 — crossed the southern border. Migrants — both those who stay in border states such as our own, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, and those who are bused or make it on their own to Denver, Chicago and New York City — are putting incredible pressure on social services.
Given that concern, why can’t Congress — where the lawmaking power is, which is not the White House — get its act together to do something? During the time of the survey, after all, a bipartisan group of senators agreed on a border bill after a lot of hard work and real compromise on both sides. But that agreement not only failed to pass the Democratic-led Senate — it was not likely to pass in the GOP-controlled House, either. Conversely, a tougher immigration bill passed by the House last year was not even taken up by the Senate, and Biden had promised to veto it anyway.
Ultimately, both parties are to blame for the lack of substantive action. This includes a refusal by Republicans to acknowledge that expanded legal immigration is part of the solution.
Americans want action on immigration and the border. Politicians can’t find a way to take that action. Maybe government should be moved back to problem No. 1.