Roughly 20% of Americans said that immigration was the main issue that drove them to vote in this election, an Election Day survey revealed, only being surpassed by the economy and jobs and ahead of abortion, climate change and foreign policy.
AP VoteCast, a survey conducted by the Associated Press among more than 110,000 voters across the U.S. painted a picture of the population's thinking at the time of heading to the ballot box, with the future of democracy also featuring highly in respondents' minds.
Asked that influenced their votes the most, about half talked about the future of democracy as the most important factor. Most voters (about 80%) also said they want to see "substantial change" in the way the country is run. 7 in 10 said the country is going down the wrong track and 25% said they want "complete and total upheaval," according to the outlet.
The responses also illustrated how former president Donald Trump has made of unlawful immigration a central topic of his message and the campaign. The issue is about eight time more important in respondents' minds than in 2020, far outpacing other answers.
In fact, Trump closed out his campaign by repeatedly stating in several rallies across battleground states on Monday that the United States is an "occupied country", citing the presence of undocumented immigrants as a central issue.
During a busy last day of campaigning in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan, the Republican also vowed, once again, to implement the largest deportation program in U.S. history and claimed he would "rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered", according to CNN.
Trump pointed to specific locations, such as an apartment complex in Colorado and Haitian migrant communities in Ohio, to argue that cities and towns across the country have been impacted by what he called a "military invasion without the uniforms."
He went on to vow to increase Border Patrol hiring, resume construction on the border wall, and reinstate the "Remain in Mexico" policy. Trump also called for stricter policies, such as targeting migrant gangs, banning sanctuary cities, and even seeking the death penalty for any migrant convicted of killing a U.S. citizen.
Vice-presidential hopeful JD Vance has also floated the idea of certain immigrants with legal residency also being targeted, including DACA recipients. Trump himself has also pledged to end the CHNV parole program, potentially affecting up to 2.7 million people.
The sheer scope of an operation targeting all the mentioned migrant groups is the focus of a new study by FWD.us which has revealed that nearly 28.2 million U.S. residents, including 19.5 million Latinos will live in mixed-status or undocumented households as of early 2025, putting them at risk of deportation of family separation. In all, 1 in 12 people in the U.S. and nearly 1 in 3 Latinos are poised to suffer the consequences of Trump's immigration policies.
The final tallies include 5.1 million U.S. citizen children and 6.1 million U.S. citizen adults who live with at least one undocumented household member. Among these adults, nearly two-thirds are Millennials or Gen Z, and more than 1.1 million have an undocumented spouse.
Trump is reportedly contemplating halting federal grants to police departments that decline to participate in his mass deportation plan, with aides recently telling NBC News that the strategy would seek to pressure law enforcement agencies in blue states to comply.
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