09 SEP 2022

ICYMI: Pennsylvania Capital-Star: Pa. Voters Back Dreamers; Path to Citizenship for the Undocumented

WASHINGTON, DC –  As the midterm elections approach, a new battleground poll by the Immigration Hub and SEIU, reveals that a majority of voters, including Pennsylvania voters, strongly support Dreamers and reject Republicans’ extreme and dangerous anti-immigrant agenda. 

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman had a resounding primary victory— markedly leaning into values-based immigration messaging throughout a campaign that won all 67 PA counties— but Republican Party candidates in PA have chosen to represent the most extreme, anti-immigrant positions that echo fringe, white nationalist ideologies. In a recently revealed recording, GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano stated that Dreamers need to be “disqualified from citizenship” and “need to go back home.” Trump-endorsed Senate candidate Mehmet Oz continues to fear monger over the border, while peddling dangerous and divisive policies. 

Bottomline: Pennsylvania voters rejected Republicans’ extreme and chaotic immigration agenda in 2018 and 2020, and this November, Democrats have an opportunity to hold the GOP accountable once again for their anti-immigrant record. While Republicans embrace hateful rhetoric against immigrants and sow division, Democrats must show their commitment to protect Dreamers and create a path to citizenship for farmworkers, TPS holders and other immigrant workers who are essential to our nation’s economy.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 

Pennsylvania Capital-Star: Poll: Pa. voters back Dreamers; path to citizenship for the undocumented | Thursday Morning Coffee 

By John L. Micek

Key Points:

  • The growing political clout of Pennsylvania’s thriving Latino community is already well-documented.

  • And as we move into the thick of the midterm campaign season, it’s also becoming abundantly clear that Latino voters, a diverse coalition whose loyalties can’t be taken for granted, also are discovering — and using — their voices to speak up on a host of issues.

  • A recent poll of voters in nine battleground states, including Pennsylvania, provides further clarification of those priorities, with strong majorities saying Congress should move to protect Dreamers if a federal court overturns the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and move to stabilize the nation’s agricultural workforce to help stem rising food prices.

  • The poll by Hart Research Associates and BSP Research also shows that, despite Republican attempts to use immigration challenges against Democrats this campaign season, voter support for reform issues has not been blunted.

  • Seven in 10 of all respondents, including 82 percent of Latino voters, three-quarters of swing voters (76 percent) and independents (74 percent) agree with Democratic-backed arguments that undocumented immigrants should be provided a path to citizenship.

  • That evidence of that strength of sentiment among Latino voters is clear in the numbers. Half of all Latino respondents told pollsters that they personally know someone who is undocumented. And for nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of Latino voters, it is a family member who is undocumented, pollsters said.  

  • The poll confirms what’s already widely known: That Democrats are vulnerable to Republican attacks on issues of border security.

  • The poll, however, finds that if Democrats successfully hone their messaging, it’s possible for them to deflect those Republican attacks. But as advocates made clear last month, Latino voters in the Keystone State are deeply skeptical and won’t easily hand over their support.

  • Still, overall polling data shows a lean toward Democrats among Latino voters, who say they’re turned off by Republican xenophobia, providing Democrats with an opening as Election Day closes in.

  • “Voters in key battleground states, including swing and Latino voters, not only reject the GOP’s extreme anti-immigrant agenda, but they continue to strongly support pro-immigrant solutions, including protecting our nation’s Dreamers, farm workers, [Temporary Protected Status] holders and undocumented immigrants,” Gonzales said.

###

The Immigration Hub is a national organization dedicated to advancing fair and just immigration policies through strategic leadership, innovative communications strategies, legislative advocacy and collaborative partnerships.