The (New) Partisan Gap On Immigration
Congress has yet to approve the billions of dollars that Trump wants for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, but the president says he remains committed to the project. And he has support from his party: According to polling by the Public Religion Research Institute, 80 percent of Republicans support the wall, compared with just 19 percent of Democrats. The parties are also split on other immigration-related issues, such as whether immigrants are good for the country, but that is a relatively recent phenomenon.
As recently as the mid-2000s, similar shares of Republicans and Democrats agreed with the statement that “immigrants today strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents,” according to the Pew Research Center:
The partisan split on immigration has expanded since Trump took center stage in U.S. politics, perhaps driven in part by his rhetoric on the issue. He tweeted this, for example, over the weekend: