Different Attitudes About Illegal Immigration in the U.S.

CNN did a poll about American attitude toward illegal immigration and found out that there is a noticeable racial attitude toward illegal immigrants between blacks and whites. This is from a report on the poll:

Blacks and whites differed over whether the number of illegal immigrants should be increased, with 14 percent of African-Americans saying it should, versus 3 percent of whites.

Nineteen percent of blacks said they thought all illegal immigrants should be removed from the country; 35 percent of whites said that.

Blacks and whites overwhelmingly oppose state governments issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, with 76 percent of blacks and 83 percent of whites taking that stance, the poll said.

The races differed more on whether state and local police should turn over illegal immigrants they encounter, even if the immigrants have broken no state or local laws. In such cases, 45 percent of blacks and 61 percent of whites said they believe police should turn over illegal immigrants.

Asked whether people who cannot read or write English should be allowed to vote, 54 percent of blacks said they should, versus 43 percent of whites.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 eliminated voting barriers such as a literacy test.

The only area in which there was close to agreement was on the issue of drivers' licenses being issued to illegal immigrants where the spread was seven percentage points.

What is also interesting about this poll were the answers to the question about whether there should be more or fewer illegal immigrants. Here is a quote from the poll:

Seven percent of those polled said they would like to see the number of illegal immigrants increase, 22 percent said they would like the number to remain the same, 16 percent want it decreased "a little" and 22 percent want it decreased "a lot," according to the poll of 1,212 adult Americans

Now, if you add up the above figures, you only get 67% expressing an opinion on the subject of whether they wanted a change in the number of illegal immigrants. That would apparently mean that about 33% had no opinion. Given all the media attention on the subject of illegal immigrants, that's suprising.