With polls the questions you ask matter a lot. I don't read this poll as being about illegal immigration but someone else might (e.g. you did). That is worth splitting out as a separate question. But asking that risks getting answers you don't like, e.g. my bet would be most Americans would not support the idea that anyone can just come and stay in the US illegally without going through any process, i.e. an open border policy. My bet would also be that most Americans would support immigration of highly skilled labor or certain other professions given the right processes in place and demand for those. There are probably other ways to slice and dice this question to get a deeper understanding of how people think about this.

It would also be nice if the poll probed as to the reasons for why people hold certain opinions. My guess would be the numbers are changing partly due to political backlash and not due to some economical or social insight.

The good thing about this poll is that the same questions are asked over time. So likely the trends are real. It's just hard to get a more nuanced understanding.

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timr 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> I don't read this poll as being about illegal immigration but someone else might (e.g. you did).

Almost every question was about illegal immigration. They ask some top-level questions about overall immigration, then ask a series of other questions about illegal immigration, border enforcement, etc.

	▲	YZF 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I just read through all the questions again. There are questions about people present in the US illegally but not about people being allowed to come to the US illegally. When I say illegal immigration I'm mostly thinking of the question of whether people should be allowed to come into a country illegally and generally immigration laws that govern people immigrating to the country. The question of how to deal with people who are present, maybe for a long time, in the country illegally is a different one. But I can see how in the US those are sort of mashed together. There's an obvious relationship, e.g. if you say that someone present in a country illegally should be allowed to stay and become a citizen that basically means new people arriving (let's say as tourists or not entering via official entry points) can just stay and become citizens. But I think in the US it's generally debated as two separate questions, i.e. people that are present (especially for a long time, families, etc.) should have a path to become legal immigrants. I'm not here to really debate this but more to point out those are somewhat different questions. Let's review everything just to make sure we're not missing anything: "Thinking now about immigrants — that is, people who come from other countries to live here in the United States — in your view, should immigration be kept at its present level, increased or decreased?" -> legal immigration (presumably, or at least ambiguous) "On the whole, do you think immigration is a good thing or a bad thing for this country today?" -> legal immigration (again, presumably) "Please tell me whether you strongly favor, favor, oppose or strongly oppose each of the following proposals. " -> This one is more of a mix but the question of whether people support illegal immigration isn't really addressed. There are questions about how people who are present in the US illegally should be treated and about things like border security which has some tangents to illegal immigration (presumably a border is there to stop illegal immigration, but also to stop smuggling and other reasons, but why not just ask if people want open borders?) "Figures represent percentages who favor or strongly favor each policy." -> similar to the above, dealing with the question of those present in the US illegally not the question of more people coming into the US and whether that should be via current legal means or "open border everyone is welcome with no process". "Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling the immigration issue?" -> not really clear enough but feels like another permutation of the above. dealing with people present illegally and not general immigration policy questions (who should be able to come and who shouldn't).