Remember back on Tuesday when Bloomberg released a poll purporting to show that Americans supported President Obama’s amnesty plan by a 2-to-1 margin? Well today we learned that that poll was a complete outlier.
The rest of the poll’s results, released today, show Obama beating Romney 53 percent to 40 percent, a 13-point margin. The Real Clear Politics poll average (including the Bloomberg poll) has Obama up by only 2.2 points, and the next highest Obama friendly poll had him up by only 4. So Bloomberg’s 13-point Obama lead, and the immigration question it included, is off by somewhere around 10-points at least.
Even then Bloomberg’s question was both heavily slanted toward Obama and factually inaccurate. Here is the exact wording:
President Obama announced that the U.S. would halt the deportation of some illegal immigrants if they came here before age 16, have been in the country for five years, have no criminal record, are in school or have a high school diploma or have been honorably discharged from the military. Do you agree or disagree with this new policy?
There are at least four things wrong with this question:
1) It does not note that illegal immigrants up to age 30 would be eligible for the program. The only age mentioned in the question is 16, which gives the impression that it would apply to high school students only.
2) It says eligible participants must “have no criminal record.” This is false. Documents released by DHS make clear that people with up to two misdemeanors will qualify for the program, and people with more than three can qualify if the secretary determines none of the misdemeanors were “significant.”
3) The question fails to mention that Obama implemented this policy without consulting Congress
4) The question completely fails to mention that Obama also will grant those participating in the program work permits. This is an essential part of the program. Without the work permits, Obama’s announcement is a run of the mill law enforcement decision. The work permits are what make it an amnesty program.
