America's Talking - Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Concerned About Situation at Border

Episode Date: August 27, 2023

The vast majority of Americans are concerned about the situation at the U.S. border, according to new polling. The Center Square Voters' Voice Poll, conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights, asked 2,500 registered voters, including 1,000 registered Democrats, 1,000 registered Republicans, and 500 independents: "How concerned are you about the situation at the border?" Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America in Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire service. Joining me again today, as he does every week, is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper. How are things? Casey? Things are good, Dan. I just want to thank you what you were saying for what you were saying before we jumped on there about me being your favorite employee. I appreciate that. And it's an honor to work for you. Casey, have you been taking hallucinogenic drugs or something like that before we got it? here. I don't recall. I was saying that. You know, Dan, I hope I haven't been taking any fentanyl, which might just happen to be a great segue into today's topic. I don't know about great,

but it is a segue, Casey. We announced on one of our episodes last week, the launch of the Center Square Voters Voice Poll, where we surveyed 2,500 American voters. 1,000 of them were registered Democrats, 1,000 registered Republicans, and 500 independents, surveyed them on a variety of issues, and we've been reporting all week at the CenterSquare.com about the results of the poll. Two of those stories I want to focus on today are about Americans' feelings about what's been going on at the border and how concerned they are about the fentanyl crisis in the U.S. Casey, and I found the results fascinating. On the border, what we found was Americans are overwhelmingly concerned about the situation on there, and this cuts across all demographic groups. It's not just a Republicans

are concerned and Democrats are not, vast majority of Democrats are concerned about what's going on at the border. A vast majority of Hispanics are concerned about what's going on at the border. Before we get into the fentanyl-fetanol topic, what do you make of the results of the concerns about the border? All the results from this poll that we conducted, the Center Square voice, voters' voices poll has been really interesting. You can find a lot of those at theCentersquare.com. And, you know, I think what this poll found is just about everybody in America is worried about the southern border, except for a handful of politicians in Washington, D.C. I mean, this is something that impacts real people. I think they disagree. The American people may

disagree on some of the tactics to fix, you know, the issue with the border. They might have differing opinions about the wall or, you know, deportation or things like that. But overall, Americans are not happy with the status quo, which is kind of ironic because we have absolutely nothing but the status quo when it comes to the border issue. I mean, each executive president comes in and they make some changes to how things are enforced. Of course, Biden really allowed for a lot more immigration with some of his changes. But overall, like legislatively, Congress, there's nothing on the horizon. There's, you know, no hope really right now for any kind of major change until the next election potentially. And even then, Republicans who you think

would maybe be more likely to make a change on this issue, would need a very big majority to do that. is this probably unlikely that that's going to happen. So I think Americans are sick of the status quo on this issue, and sadly, that's probably what they're going to get for the next few years at the very least. A little context since President Biden first took office in 2021, Casey, more than 8.4 million people have crossed the border with the United States. Many of them illegally. That is at all time high. Republicans, of course, blame the Biden administration's what they call last. Ex-Border policies, completely opposite of former President Donald Trump, who campaigned in 2016 on building the wall. He got a significant portion of the ball completed, but when President Biden, on his first

day in office, he ended wall construction. He ended a number of Trump policies such as Remain in Mexico, which essentially required those seeking asylum in the United States to wait in Mexico while their asylum requests played out in U.S. immigration courts. Earlier this spring in May, Title 42, a health authority that Trump put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic that made it easier for border agents to expel migrants back to Mexico under the auspices of preventing the spread of COVID-19. That is now over. Biden launched a parole initiative that allowed more foreign nationals to come into the United States. So certainly we've seen a huge surge in migrants crossing the border, many of them illegally,

many of them released into communities across the United States. And one of the major concerns about that has to do with fentanyl struggling. We know, Casey, that Mexican cartels control large paths of the southern border with the United States. We know that these drug cartels, these cartels. are the ones that are transporting illegal fentanyl into the United States. And more than 100,000 Americans have died of drug overdoses, and the vast majority of them are because of fentanyl. And in our poll, we also asked these registered voters how worried they were about the

fentanyl crisis in the United States. And it was overwhelmingly, well, let's just say nine in 10 Americans are worried about what's going on with fentanyl overdose deaths in the United States. what do you make of that? Yeah, I mean, it's, it is at crisis level, as we said, and I just want to go back briefly to that 8 million number you said about people who've come in in the Biden administration. I mean, I know that is a big number, but people think, oh, we have 300 something million, eight million people coming across southern border.

I mean, that is more than a third of the population of Florida coming in. I mean, Texas only has less than 30 million people. So California is only 40 million and 8 million people. So some of our biggest states, we're talking about a fourth, a third, more than that, than a third of the population of some of our biggest states coming in in such a short period of time. These numbers are astronomical. It's really unprecedented migration, demographic change, foreign nation. And we really have no idea what that's going to mean for the next 10, 20 years. We've reported at this onus Square.com, then that 8.5 million figure is greater than the population of 38.

U.S. states, just to put that into context. Wild. That's incredible. Yeah. I mean, that's, no, that's an incredible number. And it shows you how big issue also the amnesty ideas. I mean, if there really is ever amnesty and citizenship, what that could do for just elections even. I mean, new voters, how are they going to vote? Such a big, some of our elections are decided by, in certain counties, by 10,000 voters, you know, in tight counties and swing states. And we have millions of people coming in. If they started voting, it would just change everything. So, but on the fentanyl issue, I may not made light of it a little bit. And of course, there are people, you know, using fentanyl recreationally.

but it's extremely dangerous. And a big reason people are dying is fentanyl is in other, you know, quote unquote, less risky drugs. I mean, you know, what kind of drug is that risky? But, you know, fentanyl is laced into these drugs that people are used to taking it maybe a low dose. But then they take it has a little bit of fentanyl in it and they overdose because they have no idea how much they're taking. They don't even mean to take fentanyl. They don't want to take fentanyl, but it's in the drugs they're taking. And so there's even, you know, children can be accidentally taking it.

fentanyl can be so strong that even if you just accidentally come into contact with it, it can impact you. We've had police officers who have had, you know, serious health issues just from handling fentanyl. So it's an extremely potent drug. It's very dangerous. So many Americans are concerned, you know, nine and ten Americans worried about fentanyl overdose deaths, as, you know, that poll you referenced. That is, in the world of polling, 90% is basically 100%. percent because you don't really ever get 100 percent on anything just because of the way polls are and people some people just always check no or something but 90 percent concern on any issue means basically everyone is worried about this and I don't think you've heard you've heard a

they was talked about at the debate Republican debate on Wednesday but I don't think you've heard a lot of big solutions coming out of Washington on this issue in the very limited time we have left I just want to go go over the week some more of the results we also asked voters who they blame for the fentanyl crisis. Voters were given the opportunity to respond to more than one of the potential folks to blame. I found this interesting. 56% blame the Mexican drug cartels. You referenced other drugs being, other prescription drugs being laced with fentanyl.

It's the Mexican drug cartels who are overwhelmingly doing that and shipping it into the United States. That was the one that voters blamed the most. Interestingly, the second most that received blame in our survey, American drug users themselves. I found that interesting. China was third with 44%. China creates the precursors of fentanyl, ships them to the Mexican drug cartels who then finalized the product and smuggle it across the border. And President Joe Biden's border policies came in fourth at 39%.

But, Casey, we are out of time. I do appreciate your insight into the story and others. Listeners can keep up with all of this at thecentersquare.com. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McAulb. Thank you for listening. Please subscribe.