Voters reject the effort to politically correct President Joe Biden’s use of the word “illegal” to describe immigrants who crawl across the Mexico-U.S. border without authorization, and they also believe that those immigrants contribute to violent crime in the country.
In the latest Rasmussen Reports survey shared with Secrets, 62% said the “best way” to describe unauthorized border crossers is to call them “illegal immigrant” or “illegal alien.” Far fewer preferred the terms “asylum-seeker” or “undocumented migrant.”
What’s more, 62% also said that they are concerned that illegal immigrants “contribute to the violent crime problem in America,” and 56% believe that the border crossers make the country a “worse” place.
The new survey is somewhat shocking because sizable percentages of Democrats and independents agree that illegal immigration is bad, and they do not agree with the policing of Biden’s use of the word “illegal” to describe the immigration crisis on his watch, a term he later said he wouldn’t use again.
The problem has turned on Biden ever since he opened the borders to illegal immigration on his first day in office by canceling former President Donald Trump’s executive moves.
Last month, it hit a boiling point when an American nursing student was brutally murdered and an illegal iimmigrant was charged. During his State of the Union address, Biden blamed an “illegal” for the killing. He later doubled down, telling White House reporters that the alleged killer was “technically not supposed to be here.”
Then, after criticism from Democrats, Biden told a weekend MSNBC show that he regretted using the term.
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Biden said, “I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal.’ It’s ‘undocumented.’” His comments were seen as an apology to the alleged killer, not the nursing student, Laken Riley.
With majorities of Democrats agreeing that illegal immigration contributes to violent crime and makes the nation worse, Biden’s whole immigration policy is likely to make his reelection harder. Sizable majorities already believe that the president’s “Bidenomics” is hurting them, and immigration has emerged as an equal to the economy as a top election topic.