Hispanic Voters Tilt Toward Stronger Immigration Policies

Before lawmakers in the lame-duck House consider any sort of immigration legislation they should check with their Hispanic constituents. Exit polling from the midterm election shows Hispanic voters of both parties support substantially reduced levels of immigration, limits on chain migration, and universal use of the E-Verify program that vets foreign nationals’ eligibility to work in this country.

Surveying Hispanic voters who cast ballots in the 2022 midterm election, Rasmussen Reports found:

• 57 percent believe the government is doing “too little” to “reduce illegal border crossings and visitor overstays.”

• 62 percent want reductions in legal immigration.

• 58 percent favor legal immigrants being able to sponsor only spouses and minor children. Just 33 percent think extended family chain migration should continue.

• 64 percent want the federal E-Verify job-screening program applied universally.

“These findings counter the myth that Hispanics favor illegal immigration. Hispanic voters are citizens with the same concerns about schools, jobs, crowding, etc.,” said Jim Robb, vice president of operations at NumbersUSA, which sponsored the survey.

Significantly, Rasmussen’s exit poll reveals that support for immigration policies that protect public interests crosses party lines.

After respondents were told that about 1 million legal immigrants come to the U.S. annually they were asked what number they would prefer: Fewer than 250,000? Half a million? 750,000? 1 million? 1.5 million? More than 2 million?

Thirty-six percent chose the lowest figure, less than a quarter-million. All told, 62 percent of respondents – including 53 percent of Democrats – want reductions from today’s levels.

On chain migration, Hispanic Democrats favor limits on who gets to come to this country, 50-39 percent. Sixty-one percent support E-Verify requirements for employment.

The exit survey found that Hispanics gave 39 percent of their votes to Republican candidates this year, the highest level recorded for a midterm election.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis received 58 percent of the Sunshine State’s Hispanic votes. “No one was surprised that Mr. DeSantis got a strong majority of Cuban Americans to vote for him, but he also got the votes of 56 percent of Florida’s Puerto Ricans, a group that was supposed to be much more Democratic,” Rasmussen reported.

The poll results reinforce a Zogby survey commissioned by FAIR. That sampling reported immigration was a “very important” or “somewhat important” concern to 87 percent of Hispanic voters. Some 54.7 percent of respondents “strongly supported” or “somewhat support” completing the border fence, and 38 percent “strongly supported” a return to the previous policy of requiring asylum claims to be filed outside the United States. Almost 30 percent somewhat favored that.

Nearly 33 percent of Hispanic respondents rated “securing the border and stopping illegal immigration” as their top priority, while another 17 percent cited removal of illegal aliens who are in the country as most important. Combined, these enforcement-minded priorities beat out “Providing more people who want to come to the U.S. the opportunity to enter legally” (28 percent) and the less than 18 percent who listed amnesty as a priority.

These findings ought to give Congress pause as lame-duck Democrat leaders set a post-Thanksgiving vote on the Equal Access to Green Cards for Legal Employment Act. This so-called “EAGLE” — which would eliminate per-country caps for employment-based visas while boosting the number of green cards, taking thousands of job opportunities from American workers – looks more like a turkey to increasingly skeptical Hispanic voters.