October 10, 2006

Tennesseans Overwhelmingly View Illegal Immigration As Bad for the State

The latest statewide poll from the Middle Tennessee State University Survey Group finds that Tennesseans by landslide proportions believe illegal or "undocumented" immigrants make life worse for Tennesseans, even though a majority of Tennesseans believe immigration (the legal kind) is a good thing.

In the MTSU poll, 60 percent of respondents said they believe illegal immigration makes life worse. Change the word to the more politically correct "undocumented" immigrants and 58 percent still thought it is a negative.

In politics, winning by 10 points is considered a landslide.

So, how did HispanicNashville.com headline their version of the story? With a heavy dose of spin: 4 out of 10 disagree that illegalized foreigners make life worse.

The website goes on to crow that "Health care, not immigration, viewed as most serious problem in state," both ignoring that illegals are straining our healthcare system and driving up costs, and also misleading by combining illegal immigration and legal immigration into one catch-all term, "immigration."

Go back and look at the MTSU poll. Fully 60 percent of Tennesseans believe illegal immigration is a problem. Only 19 percent of the survey respondents said healthcare was Tennessee's No. 1 problem. The MTSU poll reports goes on to say education follows health care at 15 percent, then crime at 7 percent and the economy at 6 percent and, "despite enormous political and media attention, only 2 percent named immigration as a major state problem."

That sounds contradictory but it isn't. Yes, 60 percent of Tennesseans believe illegal immigration is bad for Tennessee, but when the MTSU pollsters asked, Tell me in your own words: What do you think is the number one problem confronting the state of Tennessee at this time?, few respondents said immigration was the state's top problem.

What we do know from the poll is that few Tennesseans currently believe illegal immigration is the state's number one problem. That doesn't mean they don't believe illegal immigration is a serious problem.

Because of the way MTSU asked the question and tabulated the results - giving the percentage of respondents who listed healthcare, education, the economy, crime or other issues as the state's "number one problem," we simply don't know how many would have listed immigration as the state's second-worst problem, or third.

It was a poorly formulated poll question. If instead the MTSU pollsters had asked respondents to list what they believed are the top seven problems facing the state, we would have a much better idea of the public's' overall view of of the relative importance of problems in healthcare, education, crime, traffic, the economy, illegal immigration and other issues.

The MTSU poll found that more than half - 52 percent - of Tennesseans think "immigration" is a good thing. People like myself and many others who believe immigration is a good thing but illegal immigration is bad would not list "immigration" as the state's number one problem.

If they'd called me, I would not have listed illegal immigration as the state's "number one problem," either. I'd have listed government ethics, and the ongoing problem of the legislature and governor repeatedly overriding the state's constitutional spending cap, which historically and inevitably leads to tax increases. But I would have listed illegal immigration in the top five.

The dichotomy between 60 percent saying illegal immigration is bad for Tennessee but only two percent identify immigration as the state's number one problem is good news for Gov. Phil Bredesen as it shows that a majority of Tennesseans may have bought into his political spin that illegal immigration is solely a federal problem and the state's hands are tied.

The Bredesen administration's policy choices on illegal immigration have been little more than political ass-covering, window-dressing and buck-passing, combined with giving illegals a license to drive on our roads. Lucky for him, he appears to have convinced the majority of Tennesseans, even among the landslide majority who believe illegal immigration is having a negative impact on the state, that passing the buck and blaming the feds is pretty much all that a governor actually can do.

That's the good news for Bredesen.

The bad news for Bredesen is this: 60 percent of Tennesseans believe illegal immigration is bad for Tennessee. They know it has negative impacts on crime rates, law enforcement, the judicial system and jail and prison overcrowding. They know it drives up the cost of healthcare - which is the number one issue for many Tennesseans. They know it drives up the cost for education and they know it means downward pressure on wages. And once they they realize the governor COULD do something to help, but instead blocked the efforts of a courageous state senator to make Tennessee less of a magnet for illegals, they will know who bears the blame.