A majority of Texas voters now say they would immediately deport all illegal aliens living in the U.S., as well as slow down the process of legal immigration.
Most of those taking a hard stance against illegal aliens are Republican, and that stance has grown stronger in recent months.
“If we look at our June polling, 70 percent of Republicans said they supported immediate deportation of undocumented immigrants, and in our October polling it jumped 11 points to 81 percent,” Dr.Joshua Blank, manager of polling and research at the Texas Politics Project at UT-Austin.
Roughly one-in-three Hispanics in Texas agree with Republicans.
“It'snot the case that Hispanics are universally liberal in their attitudes toward immigration policy, and in fact, there are about a third of them, and it's similar again to the share who support Republicans who agree with these issue positions,” says Blank.
Meanwhile,77 percent of Texas Democrats strongly disagree with deportation.
“It'snot surprising given that the issue is more complicated for Democrats that in the final weeks of the election they've essentially ceded the field to Republicans who have taken it and used it to drive up interest and engagement among their own voters.”