Immigration

Immigration Seen as National Security Threat

Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters

September 14, 2005

Is it too easy or to hard for people from other countries to enter the United States?
Too Hard	11%
Too Easy	76%
RasmussenReports.com

September 20, 2005--Seventy-six percent (76%) of American voters say it is too easy for people from other countries to enter the United States. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 11% take the opposite view and believe it is too hard.

The survey also found that 63% believe that "current immigration laws" are a threat to national security. Just 20% disagree.

Sixty-two percent (62%) consider the laws a threat to the U.S. economy while 23% disagree.

Neither political party has carved out an advantage on this emerging issue. Forty-one percent (41%) of Americans prefer the Democrats to handle immigration issues while 39% prefer the Republicans.

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Married Americans (67%) are more likely to see immigration as a national security threat than those who are not married (56%). There is a smaller gap between married and unmarried on the question of an economic threat from current economic laws.

There is no significant gender gap or racial divide on these questions.

Republicans (76%) are more likely than Democrats (57%) to see immigration laws as a national security threat. By a smaller margin, 67% to 61%, Republicans are also more likely to see immigration laws as an economic threat.

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Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade.

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This survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports September 14, 2005. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.