According to a new poll released by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, 74 percent of Republican voters in Texas agree that the sheer number of illegal aliens crossing the southern border is a crisis.
The poll’s results show that “three quarters of Republicans (74%) consider the number of migrants attempting to cross the border ‘a crisis’ and another 11% consider it ‘a very serious problem.”
Additionally, the poll also shows that 20 percent of Democrat voters believe that illegal immigration into Texas constitutes a crisis and 37 percent believe that, while it is a serious problem, it is not a crisis.
The poll also analyzed whether or not Texas voters overall believed strict actions should be taken to secure the border.
Sixty-six percent support deploying the military to the border, 65 percent support building a border wall, 60 percent believe it should be made a state crime for illegal aliens to be in Texas, 57 percent think buoys and wire fences should also be used to curb illegal border crossings, and 55 percent support paying bus companies to transport illegal aliens out of Texas.
Interestingly, 41 percent of Texas voters also support preventing southern border access by Border Patrol.
According to the poll results, “Partisan differences in attitudes toward border security policies have diminished somewhat with gradual shifts in Democrats’ views of the urgency of the increased numbers of migrants crossing or attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.”
Texas voters were also asked if they believe illegal aliens in the state of Texas should be deported immediately; 58 percent of voters agreed while 37 percent of voters disagreed.
When it comes to Republican voters specifically, 91 percent believe that Texas should continue to erect physical border security obstacles such as repairing and/or building a wall.
Meanwhile, 90 percent of GOP voters believe that additional military and state police forces should be deployed to protect state sovereignty at the border.
According to the poll results, “The state’s prevention of U.S. border patrol agents from accessing parts of the Texas-Mexico border is the most controversial of recent state policies.”
While 41 percent of voters supported the possibility, 44 percent opposed it.
