Around 60 percent of Americans approve of President Trump’s administration sending troops to secure the southern border, according to a new survey released on Wednesday.
The new Quinnipiac University national poll found that 60 percent of U.S. adults back the deployment of U.S. troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to fortify security there while 36 percent said otherwise.
Nearly all Republican voters, 95 percent, are supportive of the effort while 68 percent of Democrats disapprove of it. Nearly six in 10 independents, 57 percent, are also supportive while 40 percent said the opposite, according to the poll.
“The huge deployment of boots on the ground is not to a dicey, far away war theater, but to the American border. And a majority of voters are just fine with that,” Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said.
The Pentagon started sending troops to the southern border to assist in tamping down the number of migrants coming into the country last week. The deployment of servicemembers came just two days after Trump signed several executive orders regarding the presence of troops at the cross-site.
To help with the federal government’s crackdown on migration at the U.S.-Mexico border, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said on Monday he would send 400 soldiers, C-130s and Chinook helicopters to help out the “Texas National Guard soldiers already deployed on the border to collaborate with U.S. Border Patrol agents on the border.”
The survey also showed that 44 percent of respondents support deporting all undocumented immigrants and sending them back to their home countries. Another 39 percent said they only back deporting undocumented immigrants who are convicted of violent crimes. Some 6 percent oppose both options while 10 percent have no opinion on the matter, according to the poll.
The poll was conducted from Jan. 23-27 among 1,019 self-identified registered voters. The margin of error was 3.1 percentage points.
