While President Joe Biden has carefully maintained that the surge of illegal immigrants pouring over the southern border does not constitute a “crisis,” a new poll shows that only a tiny fraction of his most ardent supporters believe him. Although the legacy media have dedicated ample coverage to Biden’s approval numbers, they have virtually ignored this poll and the broader immigration issue, where the president’s party line has been repudiated even by most of his fellow Democrats.
America’s southern border has so clearly spun out of control that only about one of every four registered Democrats agree with Biden that it is not a “crisis,” according to an Economist/YouGov poll conducted late last month. The national survey found that a mere 27% of registered Democrats agreed “there is no crisis” of illegal immigration, while 49% said the border represents a national crisis, and 24% said they were not sure.
White House spokesperson Jen Psaki revealed that the administration had consciously refused to use the term “crisis” for political reasons.
President Biden’s handling of illegal immigration earned him even less credibility with Americans as a whole. Two-thirds of registered voters (65%) described the massive increase in illegal immigration since Joe Biden’s inauguration as a national crisis. Less than two in 10 say the issue has not yet reached the crisis stage or that they are not sure (17% each).
“President Joe Biden may hope that Americans judge him for his work on COVID-19,” wrote Kathy Frankovic of YouGov America after an earlier poll in April. “But for many, it may be what happens on immigration that matters more.”
More and more voters have come to see the rates of human trafficking and drug smuggling associated with an uncontrolled border as a national threat.
Before Joe Biden took office in January, immigration ranked 14th on the Gallup poll’s list of most the important problems facing the country — behind “other” and “no opinion.” A mere 1% of Americans viewed the border as the most pressing concern before the Biden-Harris administration. Americans now see immigration as the third biggest crisis facing the country, tied with the “economy in general.”
According to that Gallup poll, Americans say the biggest emergency facing the U.S. today is “the government/poor leadership.”
Americans are dissatisfied with the job Biden is doing on immigration, though you may never know that from the media. A Washington Post/ABC poll finds that 51% of Americans disapprove of his handling of the border crisis, with only 33% approving.
Yet when it comes to the issue of immigration, Americans hold Joe Biden in higher esteem than Vice President Kamala Harris. Only 30% of Americans think Harris has been successful in her designated role overseeing immigration, according to a Harvard CAPs/Harris poll.
The polls show that the American people have comprehensively repudiated the Biden administration’s approach to immigration in toto. “Voters say Biden should have left in place the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Fifty-five percent of voters said the previous administration’s policies should have been kept, while 45 percent say they should have been undone,” reported The Hill late last month, citing a Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll. “Overall, 67 percent of voters say that people who cross the southern border illegally should be sent back to Mexico, while a third say they should be released into the U.S. with a court date.”
The media blackout of these poll results gives us an insight into one aspect of the politically skewed news coverage: media bias by omission. While the U.S. media hype President Joe Biden’s approval polls, they have remained virtually silent about these polls. “Biden Approval Rating: Down Slightly But Holding Steady,” reported Bloomberg News. “Poll: Biden approval steady,” said The Washington Post. U.S. News and World Report added that Biden’s approval ratings were not merely “steady” but “strong.”
But only a few outlets in right-leaning media have reported on the border crisis poll. The media give immigration such little coverage that a Pew Research poll found that 43% of Americans want more immigration coverage in the news.
Ordinary businesses usually rush to supply consumers’ demands. The fact that media give such little attention to the border crisis — where the polls, and the facts, put Biden and Harris in a negative light — is so telling that Biden’s fellow Democrats have seen through it.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
