Biden approval near lowest of his term as immigration concerns rise: Reuters/Ipsos poll

WASHINGTON – United States President Joe Biden’s popularity was near the lowest level of his presidency in October as Americans’ concerns over immigration rose to their highest level since 2019, before he took office, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.

The three-day opinion poll, which ended on Sunday, showed 40 per cent of respondents approved of Mr Biden’s performance as president, down marginally from 42 per cent a month earlier. The poll had a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.

While the economy is the perennial top concern among US voters, in October the share of poll respondents who rated immigration as the No. 1 problem rose to 14 per cent from 8 per cent in September. That was the highest measure of concern about

immigration since December 2019,

when 15 per cent of respondents cited it as their top concern.

A larger share – 19 per cent – said the economy was the top concern, down from 23 per cent in September. By comparison, 11 per cent cited crime and 7 per cent cited the environment.

Concerns among Republicans over immigration grew the most, a sign the issue could become a rallying cry for the party in the 2024 presidential contest when Mr Biden, a Democrat, is seeking re-election.

Republicans – including former president Donald Trump, the front runner for his party’s nomination – have persistently criticised Mr Biden for failing to stave off crossings from Mexico.

Trump, who was US president from 2017 to 2021, has pledged to do more to stem illegal immigration if voters return him to the White House.

Trump has led supporters to chant “build the wall” at his rallies. In a recent interview with The National Pulse, a right-leaning website, Trump said illegal immigrants were “poisoning the blood of the country”, language that his critics decried as racist.

A separate Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in September found that a majority of Americans – 54 per cent – agreed with the statement that “immigration is making life harder for native-born Americans”. Some 73 per cent of Republicans and 37 per cent of Democrats surveyed agreed with that statement.

The Republican focus on immigration will not necessarily lead to a win at the ballot box. When concerns over immigration also ran high in 2018 and Republican politicians pledged tough measures to thwart border crossings, Democrats nonetheless seized control of the US House of Representatives in that year’s elections.

Mr Biden’s administration has struggled with a record number of migrant crossings at the US-Mexico border that hit new highs in September, putting a strain on US cities at the border and further north.

The administration said last week that it will add sections to a wall on the southern border to stave off migrant crossings, carrying forward one of the signature policies of Trump’s presidency. One of Mr Biden’s first actions after taking office in January 2021 was to issue a proclamation pledging that “no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall”.

The administration said it did not deviate from the proclamation because money that was allocated during Trump's term in 2019 had to be spent now.

Mr Biden’s public approval rating has held below 50 per cent since August 2021, and October’s rating was close to the lowest levels of his presidency – 36 per cent – seen in mid-2022.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll gathered responses online from 1,029 adults, using a nationally representative sample. REUTERS