Originally published here on VDARE.com on this day in 2011.

The Rasmussen Reports item mentioned by Brenda earlier [Rasmussen Poll: Immigration Enforcement Would Decrease Poverty]about Americans believing that immigration enforcement would reduce poverty in America, divides up the responses in various categories:

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans and 58% of adults not affiliated with either political party feel there would be less poverty if immigration laws were enforced, a view shared by just 48% of Democrats.61% Say Enforcing Immigration Laws Would Cut Poverty [April 10, 2011].

The crosstabs [Subscriber link] show that 64 percent of whites and 50 percent of blacks say "Yes" when asked "if immigration laws were enforced, there would be less poverty in America?" That's a divide, but it's nothing like the divide on party lines and general political philosophies between white and black voters, 95 percent of whom voted for Obama.

It's a lot smaller, in fact, than the divide between ordinary Americans and the political class. See Poll Exposes Elite-Public Clash On Immigration by Sam Francis, from 2002, or Immigration And The States: The Slave Power Strikes Back, by William Houston, five days ago.

But the people who believe that immigration increases poverty are right.

Immigration increases poverty in two ways

The people who are poorer are low-level workers. In fact, (American) women and minorities are "hardest hit."

The imported poor people are frequently really poor, and import habits of poverty. Immigration enforcement would help a lot.