70 percent of Americans see immigration as threat to American way of life

An overwhelming majority of Americans believe undocumented immigrants pose a threat to the American way of life, according to a new poll.
Some 70 percent of Americans and 86 percent of Republicans believe that undocumented immigrants threaten traditional US beliefs and customs, according to an online Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday. Nearly two-thirds of respondents – 63 percent – said that undocumented immigrants place undue burden on the US economy.

Forty-five percent of respondents said that they feel that the number of immigrants allowed to legally enter the country should be reduced; only 17 percent said they thought that number should increase. That's in sharp contrast to opinions expressed six months ago in a February Pew Research Center poll, which found that nearly three-quarters of Americans would support a legal path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

That was before news broke in June that more than 50,000 unaccompanied children, mostly from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala had been apprehended at the border since October. Since then, immigration has leaped to the forefront of the national dialogue in recent months.

 csmonitor.com/