OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former President Donald Trump has vowed to take extreme actions to secure the U.S.-Mexico border if he wins November’s presidential election.
And that promise is supported by a key voting bloc — Latinos.
The most recent Axios-Ipsos Latino Poll shows that the percentage of Latinos who support erecting a border wall and deporting all undocumented immigrants has increased by at least 10 points since 2021.
According to the research, even among those who might have connections to immigration, Trump’s calls for increased border security and possibly his anti-immigrant rhetoric are having an impact.
The results also illuminate Republicans’ recent gains among Latinos and reflect the frustration that has elevated illegal immigration to the top issue for many Americans during election season.
If Trump wins back the presidency, he has vowed to increase border security and organize mass deportations, which he claims could include a million people.
President Joe Biden now claims he would be prepared to “close the border” in the event of spikes in the number of border crossers, following a political setback over border security.
Axios reported on the findings:
42% of Latino adults surveyed said they support building a wall or fence along the entire U.S.–Mexico border. That’s a 12-point jump from December 2021.
38% support sending all undocumented immigrants in the U.S. back to their country of origin — up from 28% in 2021.
In addition, 64% of Latinos said they support giving the president the authority to shut U.S. borders if there are too many immigrants trying to enter the country. It was the first time the survey asked this question.
Support for building a wall was strongest among Cuban Americans (58%), who generally are more conservative than many other Latinos and have benefited from decades of Cold War-era “special treatment” on immigration.
Support for the border wall is lowest among Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans (37%). Only 43% of Central Americans support the wall.
According to the survey, after inflation and crime, Latinos’ top concerns in this election year are immigration and crime.
Even though the percentage of Latinos who believe that anyone in the country illegally should be deported is on the rise, a sizable majority (65%) still prefer to offer them a path to citizenship.
A massive 59% are in favor of granting asylum to refugees who are escaping crime and violence in Latin America in the United States.
Ipsos pollster and senior vice president Chris Jackson told Axios that the poll “illustrates that some immigration hardline positions (are) incrementally more popular” among Latinos.
This comes as the former Border Patrol union head claims that since President Joe Biden gave Vice President Kamala Harris the responsibility to address the underlying causes of illegal immigration in 2021, Harris has fallen short.
“It’s very disappointing,” Brandon Judd, who recently retired as president of the Border Patrol Union, told Fox News. “We gave her the policies that she needed to implement. She refused to implement those.”
The recently retired head of the Border Patrol Union, Brandon Judd, told Fox News Digital, “It’s very disappointing.” “We provided her with the policies she had to put into effect. She declined to put those into practice.”
Judd’s remarks coincide with heightened scrutiny of Harris’s immigration and border security record in the days following Biden’s announcement that he would not be running for president and would instead support his vice president to succeed him. Critics claim Harris has fallen short on a key topic that will determine the outcome of the 2024 election.
In response to opponents who had already pointed out the increased influx of migrants within months of Biden’s election, the president appointed Harris to head the administration’s campaign to counter migration in March 2021.
On the day of the announcement, the Associated Press reported that Harris was assigned to supervise diplomatic endeavors in the Northern Triangle nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Officials from the administration told AP that Harris would be tasked with developing a long-term plan to address the underlying causes of migration from those nations, in addition to working to pressure those nations to tighten immigration laws and safeguard their own borders.
“The vice president has agreed – among the multiple other things that I have her leading, and I appreciate it – agreed to lead our diplomatic effort to work with those nations to accept returnees and enhance migration enforcement at their borders,” Biden said during the announcement.
“Needless to say, the work will not be easy,” Harris said at the time. “But it is important work.”
Fox News noted:
Later in 2021, Harris negotiated a memorandum of understanding with Mexico that saw the U.S. send $4 billion to help Central American countries address root causes of illegal migration, with private companies kicking in an extra investment of $5.2 billion to the cause.
But the vice president’s work on the issue quickly fizzled out, an NBC News report published Thursday revealed, noting that Harris visited Mexico in June 2021 to sign an agreement that resulted in $4 billion in direct assistance and $5.2 billion in private-public investment but has not visited the border or countries to its south since January 2022.
Since 2021, the Root Causes strategy has made no new commitments, the report notes.
Nevertheless, the share of attempted crossings by migrants from the Northern Triangle has dropped significantly since 2021. According to government statistics, migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador made up 41% of all Border Patrol apprehensions in 2021. That number dropped to 22% of crossings in fiscal 2023, the data shows.
Despite a decrease in crossings from the Northern Triangle, illegal crossings reached all-time highs in 2021, 2022, and 2023 as migrants from around the world made their way to the U.S. border.
More than 30,000 Chinese migrants were arrested for illegally crossing the southern border in 2023, according to government data.