Only 20 percent of eligible voters think that the United States has control of its own borders, a recent poll found, making it the latest survey find Biden underwater on the critical election-year issue.
The poll of 1,500 eligible voters, performed by Redfield and Wilton Strategies on behalf of Newsweek, found that just 20 percent of respondents said that the United States has control over its border, marking a significant decline over the past several months. The number has plummeted since August, when 34% of respondents said that the country had control over its own borders.
When asked “Do you believe the United States has control over its borders?” a full 63 percent said “no,” while another 13 percent said “don’t know.” A plurality of all age groups surveyed in the poll, which was performed on April 11th, agreed that the U.S. does not have control over its borders, including 47 percent of Generation Z, which was defined as those born between 1997 and 2002. A majority of those who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 (53 percent) also said that the U.S. does not have control over its borders.
The survey also asked voters their thoughts on the government’s current handling of illegal immigration, with 52 percent saying that they were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied, while only 21 percent said that they were satisfied or very satisfied.
Another recent poll found that only 36 percent of voters approve of Biden’s handling of immigration, making it the incumbent Democrat’s lowest issue-specific approval rating for the fourth month in a row. Even polls from blue states like Colorado and Massachusetts found that voters say immigration is the biggest issue facing their respective states.
The polls’ findings come as the country has seen a seismic surge in illegal immigration, with officials recording about 9 million nationwide encounters and 1.7 million estimated gotaways since President Joe Biden took office. The figure poses a sharp contrast with the 415,000 total reported gotaways for 2018, 2019, and 2020 under the Trump administration.
Former President Donald Trump appears to be gaining on Biden in the polls, no doubt in part due to widespread disapproval of the Democrat’s border policies. One recent poll found that Trump now leads Biden in Wisconsin, one of seven crucial swing states. Previous surveys found that the former president was in the lead in all six of the other seven swing states.