Poll finds little support for deporting DACA recipients

Fewer than one in five Americans are in favor of deporting immigrants brought to the U.S. as children without legal permission, according to a poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released Tuesday.

The survey pegged support for the deportations at just 19 percent. Conversely, about 60 percent are in favor of allowing those immigrants — often called “Dreamers” — to stay in the U.S. legally. 

Twenty-two percent said they were opposed to letting the young immigrants stay in the country legally.

{mosads}Support for allowing Dreamers to stay in the U.S. legally was highest among Democrats, at eight in 10. Sixty-eight percent of Hispanics, 61 percent of blacks and 57 percent of whites said they should be allowed to remain in the country. 

More than four in 10 Republicans said they support extending deportation protections. 

The Trump administration announced last month that it would end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which shielded young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children from deportation and allowed them to work. The program covers about 800,000 people.

But President Trump encouraged lawmakers to act to codify DACA’s protections into law, and said he would revisit the matter if Congress failed to do so within six months.

In a series of demands released Sunday night, however, the Trump administration pushed a harder line approach to DACA protections, saying a deal on the matter would need to include funding for a border wall, as well as a crackdown on minors fleeing to the U.S. from Central America.

The principles were quickly denounced by Democrats in Congress, who said the demands were nonstarters.