Over the past week we have been blitzed with polls purporting to show a dramatic shift in public opinion away from a longstanding opposition to amnesty. \u00a0Conveniently, this sea-change corresponds with President Obama\u2019s pitch for amnesty in Las Vegas, the unveiling of the \u201cGang of Eight\u2019s\u201d framework for amnesty legislation, and on the heels of Senator Marco Rubio\u2019s media tour plugging his version of amnesty (the catchiest thing he has come up with so far is to call it \u201cnot amnesty\u201d).<\/p>\n
Have all reasonable people finally been persuaded that the right thing to do is to reward millions of illegal aliens and abandon any pretense of border security or interior enforcement?\u00a0 Do Americans really believe that illegal immigration is a net fiscal and economic benefit, and that employers who break the law by hiring illegal aliens are doing us all a favor?\u00a0 Have President Obama and Senator Rubio finally won over those well-intentioned but misguided voters who were clinging to such outmoded ideals such as national sovereignty, self-determination, and the rule of law? That is one possibility.\u00a0 Another is that these polls are designed with the explicit purpose of propping up the flimsy premise that amnesty is inevitable and only those \u201con the wrong side of history\u201d would oppose it.\u00a0 If Obama, Rubio, public opinion, and history are against you, well, you don\u2019t have a chance, do you? Unless, of course, the agitprop that passes for serious journalism these days is a poor reflection of voter<\/em> sentiment on the issue.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take a closer look at the polls.<\/p>\n A \u201cground-breaking bi-partisan poll\u201d released by SEIU and America\u2019s Voice found that 94% of Americans favor some form of amnesty.\u00a0 This is, of course, absurd, and to be taken seriously a poll has to at least be believable, which is why \u201crespected\u201d news outlets like AP, CNN, and NBC\/Wall Street Journal have been a little less obvious is their push polling but no less pernicious in determining the outcome.<\/p>\n The AP poll found that \u201cMore than 6 in 10 Americans now favor allowing illegal immigrants to eventually become U.S. citizens<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 As we pointed out last week<\/a>, the AP asked a question totally unrelated to any possible legislative solution and offered only one choice, take it or leave it.\u00a0 NBC\/WSJ<\/a> also asked a single, similarly vague question.\u00a0 \u201cAs you may know, there is a proposal to allow foreigners who have jobs but are staying illegally in the United States to apply for legal status.\u201d\u00a0 To what proposal are they referring?\u00a0 Proposed by whom?\u00a0 What are the details of said proposal?<\/p>\n