Michigan voters prefer path to citizenship over mass deportation: poll

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Lansing — Michigan voters are divided over Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s plan to orchestrate the largest deportation attempt in U.S. history, according to a new poll commissioned by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV (Channel 4).

The survey of 600 likely general election voters, contacted on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, found that 46% of respondents supported the idea of ​​deporting millions of people in the U.S. without legal immigration status, but 46% said they opposed it. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Michigan voters, however, strongly opposed potential aspects of the deportation effort that Trump has made a centerpiece of his campaign, particularly favoring a path to citizenship for immigrants who have not committed crimes.

Asked whether they agreed with securing the country’s borders and giving undocumented immigrants a path to U.S. citizenship or securing the country’s borders and immediately deporting anyone in the country illegally, 70% chose the path to citizenship option. About 24% chose immediate deportation, a three-to-one margin in support of a path to citizenship, and 6% did not answer.

Pollster Richard Czuba, founder of the Lansing-based Glengariff Group, which conducted the poll, said the numbers revealed a potential weakness in Trump if Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, can exploit it and show she is serious about protecting the southern border.

“This is a much more nuanced position among Michigan voters than just ‘deport them,’” Czuba said.

Immigration is one of the top three issues for Michigan voters during the 2024 campaign, according to a new poll: 18% said jobs and the economy were the most important issues; 13% cited abortion and women’s rights; and 13% cited borders and immigration.

Immigration ranks higher on the list than climate change, education, taxes and foreign policy, among others.

During the current term of Democratic President Joe Biden, with Harris as vice president, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded approximately 2.5 million migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2023, a number described as a “historic high.”

The numbers have fallen so far in 2024, but the debate over illegal immigration and Trump’s idea for a massive deportation operation lingers into the upcoming election. At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee July 15-18, GOP activists adopted a Trump-inspired party platform that committed their leaders to “send illegal aliens home and remove those who have broken our laws.”

More: Michigan Republicans Unsure How Trump Will Carry Out ‘Promised’ Mass Deportations

More: Trump focuses on southern border in pitch to Michigan workers

‘What they’re running from’

Alyssa Felax, a 32-year-old Trump supporter from Adrian, says immigration is one of the most important issues for her with just over 100 days left until the Nov. 5 general election.

Felax, who participated in this week’s poll, said Americans should focus on keeping people already in the country stable. Those who entered the U.S. illegally should be deported and then they should try to return through legal means, she argued.

“If you come here illegally, there is a problem,” Felax said.

However, Felax said she supported offering a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who were brought to the United States as children by their parents and grew up here.

In the new poll, 85% of likely Michigan voters said they supported allowing young adults in that situation, often referred to as “Dreamers,” to earn a path to citizenship. About 10% supported deportation for young adults who were brought to the country as children without proper documentation.

Jamie Prinsen, a 47-year-old public school teacher in Hamilton, is one of the opponents of Trump’s mass deportation plan.

Prinsen says she has seen the effects of the country’s immigration system on people in her own life, including a first-grader whose mother was deported years ago.

“I don’t know what the answer is, but treating people like cattle is not it,” said Prinsen.

She said that if the US offered an easier path to citizenship, there wouldn’t be so many people trying to enter the country through any means.

“If they did the things they did to get here, can you imagine what they are running from?” Prinsen asked.

Detention camps?

During the campaign, Trump has highlighted crimes committed by illegal immigrants, including the March 22 killing of Ruby Garcia, a 25-year-old Grand Rapids woman who was reportedly shot by her boyfriend, a Mexican citizen. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has said the boyfriend, Brandon Ortiz-Vite, was previously deported when Trump was president.

“I will not allow these murderers and criminals into our country,” Trump said last week at the Republican National Convention. “I will keep our sons and daughters safe.”

On the evening of the four-day GOP convention, delegates were seen in the crowd holding signs reading, “Mass Deportation Now.” In his speech to the convention, Trump promised to “launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.”

Trump has said it would be larger than then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1950s effort to track and deport illegal immigrants. Trump suggested in an April interview with TIME magazine that there could be as many as 15 million people in the country illegally.

Speaking at the Republican Party national convention, Thomas Homan, Trump’s former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said he had a message for the millions of illegal immigrants who have entered the U.S. during Biden’s term in the White House.

“You better pack your things,” Homan said.

More: Trump White House told sanctions on Venezuela could fuel migration

While Trump and his supporters have provided few details about how his deportation effort would proceed, he indicated in the TIME interview that the operation could involve the military, the National Guard or new detention camps.

“But there wouldn’t be as much need, because we’re going to relocate them,” Trump told TIME. “We’re going to take them back from where they came from.”

Michigan voters were not enthusiastic about the idea of ​​setting up large-scale detention camps and using the military to deport people, according to a poll conducted by the Detroit News and WDIV-TV.

About 32% of the survey participants were in favor of building detention camps and deploying the army in the operation, while 60% were against these ideas.

For the survey, 82% of participants were contacted via a mobile phone and 18% via a landline.

Of the participants, 41% said they voted Democratic, 40% said they voted Republican, and 18% said they voted independently more often.

A Detroit News/WDIV poll shows support for Harris and Trump is nearly split, at 41.6% and 41.3%, respectively.

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