As the Supreme Court readies to hear the Obama administration’s case against Arizona’s strict immigration law, a new poll shows that Americans overwhelmingly support the law and believe the Supreme Court should uphold it.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Friday asked 2,577 registered voters nationwide whether they support Arizona’s immigration law, S.B. 1070, passed in 2010. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said they approved of the law while 27 percent said they disapproved of it. The poll question spelled out the provision of the law that “requires police to verify the legal status of someone they have already stopped or arrested if they suspect that the person is in the country illegally.”
Asked whether they thought the Supreme Court should uphold or overturn the law, 62 percent said the law should be upheld by the high court while 27 percent said it should be overturned. Ten percent registered as unsure.
The poll has a margin of error of 1.9 percent.
The Supreme Court will hear the case Wednesday. The Obama administration contends that immigration issues are a federal matter while Arizona argues that it responded to an “emergency situation” since the federal government was not enforcing the immigration laws already on the books. Furthermore, since its law matches provisions already in federal immigration statutes, Arizona contends the law is within constitutional bounds.