Approximately 7-in-10 Americans support the goals of President Barack Obama’s recent executive action on immigration, but are sharply divided about the means he used to achieve them, according to a new national survey. The PRRI Religion & Politics Tracking Survey finds that 72 percent of Americans favor allowing illegal immigrants who are parents of children with legal status to stay in the United States for three years without being subject to deportation if they pass a background check and have lived in the country at least five years; 27 percent of Americans oppose this policy. However, far fewer Americans (50 percent) say President Obama should have taken executive action given that Congress has not addressed the immigration issue, while nearly as many (45 percent) say he should not have taken executive action. CONT.
Public Religion Research Institute
