A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted January 30-31 shows that the nation is sharply divided with regard to President Trump’s recent executive order (EO).
The EO suspends the Syrian refugee program indefinitely, suspends all other refugees for 120 days, and places a ban on immigrants coming from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The order caused confusion and protests over the weekend as it was sloppily implemented.
Even in the face of its poor construction and execution, 51% of Republicans surveyed “strongly agree” with Trump’s action. Not surprisingly, 53% of Democrats “strongly disagree.” Overall, however, Reuters reports that “49 percent of American adults said they either ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ agreed with Trump’s order, while 41 percent ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ disagreed and another 10 percent said they don’t know.”
The poll also notes that slightly more Americans (31%) say the EO makes them feel “more safe” than “less safe” (26%). However, more Americans (41%) believe the EO sets a bad example rather than a good example (38%) regarding “how to confront terrorism.”
A consensus does emerge when asked if Christians refugees should take precedence over those of other faiths:
Some 56 percent, including 72 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Republicans, disagreed that the country should “welcome Christian refugees, but not Muslim ones.”
This is a misdirection the part of Reuters. The EO states:
Upon the resumption of USRAP admissions, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, is further directed to make changes, to the extent permitted by law, to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality. Where necessary and appropriate, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall recommend legislation to the President that would assist with such prioritization.
The Washington Post quotes President Trump when “asked whether he would prioritize persecuted Christians in the Middle East for admission as refugees”:
“Yes…They’ve been horribly treated…Do you know if you were a Christian in Syria it was impossible, at least very tough, to get into the United States? If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian it was almost impossible. And the reason that was so unfair — everybody was persecuted, in all fairness — but they were chopping off the heads of everybody, but more so the Christians. And I thought it was very, very unfair…So we are going to help them.”
As The Daily Wire previously reported: “Muslims (Sunni, Shia, and others) make up approximately 90% of the Syrian population. 10% of Syrians are Christians,” yet Christians made up only about 0.5% of the 10,000 Syrian refugees who entered the United States in fiscal year 2015.
One reason for the massive discrepancy between Muslim and Christian Syrian refugees is the way in which refugees are processed. The Daily Wire noted via Fox News:
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which has a massive refugee camp in Jordan called Za’atari, is the organization that refers Syrian refugees to the United States. Fox News reports that “Christians in the main United Nations refugee camp in Jordan are subject to persecution, they say, and so flee the camps, meaning they are not included in the refugees referred to the U.S. by the U.N.”
Given the mitigating circumstances, the Reuters/Ipsos question was a bit misleading. Regardless, in its entirety, the poll shows a deeply fractured American people, one that is divided almost exactly along partisan lines.