JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments tomorrow on the Trump administration's push to end birthright citizenship. A majority of Americans oppose that plan - that's according to a new NPR/Ipsos poll - even as other parts of the White House's immigration crackdown draw wider support. NPR's Joel Rose has been looking into the findings and joins us now to explain. Hi.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: Hi.
SUMMERS: So Joel, just start by telling us, what does the poll say about what Americans think of President Trump's hard-line immigration policies so far?
ROSE: Sure. Trump's crackdown has gone, in some ways, well beyond what any previous administration has tried. For example, his push to quickly deport alleged gang members without giving them a chance to contest those allegations in court under a seldom-used wartime law from the 18th century called the Alien Enemies Act - almost half of respondents in our poll say they are in favor of that. I talked to Randy Crabtree. He's a Republican from Vermilion, Ohio.
RANDY CRABTREE: I agree with what he's trying to do. Removing those that are gang affiliated and sending them to the prison down there in El Salvador, I wholeheartedly applaud.
ROSE: But some of Trump's other proposals have less support. For example, birthright citizenship - the longstanding practice of granting citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil, regardless of their parents' legal status - most legal scholars say that is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Trump, though, is pushing to end it, and our polling shows that 53% of respondents oppose that, and the poll shows that even Republicans are split on it.
SUMMERS: Got it. OK. Well, so does this poll show any big shifts on immigration since President Trump took office?
ROSE: Not really. It is actually remarkable how stable people's attitudes have been about these hard-line immigration policies, but we are seeing perhaps some softening of support, particularly around President Trump's push for mass deportation of everyone who is in the country without legal status. I talked to one poll respondent named Crystal Thomas, from Louisville, Kentucky. She considers herself a Republican-leaning independent, and she did vote for Trump, but she told me she has been concerned that this has gone a little too far, as she hears stories about immigrants who've lived and worked in her community for years, not hardened criminals and gang members, being swept up in the Trump administration's crackdown.
CRYSTAL THOMAS: It's too much. They're just doing this stuff, I think, to pump up numbers. Like, oh, hey, we got this many people out of the country. And everyone's just cheering them on, like, oh, wow, you guys are doing such a good job. But, like, at the end of the day, these are real people, and these are real families that they're ripping apart.
ROSE: Three months ago, about 44% of people we polled supported Trump's mass deportation plan. In this poll, that number had dropped to 40%.
SUMMERS: Joel, as you and others have been reporting, the Trump administration has pushed to limit the due process rights for immigrants who are in the country illegally. Does the poll have anything to say about that?
ROSE: There is actually a lot of support for the president's position here. Almost half of respondents agreed with President Trump that it would take too long to give trials to millions of immigrants without legal status before deporting them. But some were dismayed by what they see as an erosion of fundamental constitutional rights. I talked to Catherine Welty, a Democratic voter who lives near Phoenix, Arizona, and she's troubled that scores of Venezuelans and others were quickly deported without a chance to fight the allegations in court that they are gang members.
CATHERINE WELTY: It's shocking that that would happen without any sort of due process and if mistakes are happening, and they're doubling down, and they're like, well, that's too bad for them, kind of thing (laughter). And it's very scary. That's not the way I thought America worked.
ROSE: Welty describes herself as multiracial, and she worries that her 20-year-old son could be mistaken for an immigrant without legal status.
SUMMERS: That is NPR's Joel Rose. Thank you, Joel.
ROSE: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
