Immigrexit

If there was one thing that was underlying the UK referendum on leaving the EU (Brexit) it seemingly was immigration.

The British have seen a profound change in their country from open borders over the last two decades and a majority said "enough" last week.

To give you some perspective on immigration in the UK, since 1997 when Tony Blair and the Labour Party came to power and opened UK's border to waves of new immigrants, roughly twice as many immigrants arrived in the UK as had in the previous half-century.

Immigrants, who made up 7% of the population of England and Wales at that time, now comprise 14% of the population.  This is a very short period of time to assimilate this mass immigration and it ultimately led to the Brexit vote that few could have fathomed a few short years ago.

As this article by Reihan Salam in Slate points out, the UK is in a difficult spot in the EU due to its fairly open and lightly regulated labor market compared to other Euro countries. This makes the UK an attractive destination for low-skilled immigrant labor compared to other countries in the EU. The UK also has very attractive welfare programs that, unlike other EU welfare states, do not take years of contributions in order to be eligible for benefits. Both act as magnets for immigrants who want to get to the UK.

Of course, many of these immigrants have no intention of assimilating to the country, its culture or its values.

This retweet that I posted several days before the Brexit vote gave me an inkling that those who wanted to Remain might be surprised.

It reminded me of the Syrian (ISIS) refugees who had nothing but the clothes on their backs being offered boxes by the Red Cross only to have it thrown away because it had a red cross on it.

Does the Brexit vote tell us anything about our upcoming Presidential election?

I am not sure but I thought that this poll from San Diego's Union Tribune and KGTV-TV last week of San Diego County residents was a real eye-opener.

In that survey, when asked if people who entered the United States illegally should be allowed to stay or be deported, by a margin of 54%-34% the respondents said they should be deported.

That is pretty astounding when you consider that we are talking about San Diego County, California.

Let's look at the demographics of San Diego County.

33% of the county's residents are Hispanic. That is almost double the national average.

Only 46% are white compared to 62% for the nation at large.

Obama beat Romney 53%-45% in San Diego County in 2012.

Obama beat McCain 54%-44% in 2008.

Republicans were in favor of deportation in the poll 76%-16%. Independents favored deportation 58%-38%. Democrats said let them stay by 52%-34%.

More interesting was the fact that Hispanics favored deportation by 52%-38%. That is almost the same as Whites at 52%-35%.

Even more interesting is that by a 48%-34% margin the survey respondents who supported deportation stated that all illegal immigrants, including children born in the U.S. of illegals, should be deported. 66% of Hispanics who supported deportation held this view compared to only 45% of Whites.

However, the most interesting factoid in the survey was this response.

61% of those favoring deportation (that is still over 30% of the entire survey sample) would be personally willing to pay an additional $4,000 in taxes to pay for the estimated $500 billion it would cost to identify, round up and deport the illegal immigrants in this country. 

I don't know where this ends but when that number of people in one of the most Hispanic counties in the United States (ranked 8th for % of Hispanics in the U.S. ) says that they would dig into their own pockets to pay for deportation tells me something.

Donald Trump in San Diego for California Primary

Donald Trump may not win the Presidential election. Donald Trump may not win California. He may not even win San Diego County in November. It is one issue among many that concern American voters. However, in these poll results on immigration you gain some interesting insight to the mood and emotion of voters on what will be one of the most important issues in this campaign.

It also an issue in which the U.S. Supreme Court dealt President Obama and pretty big defeat last week which prompted Obama to say the immigration question is now up to the voters.

He better watch out when he says that. After all, he also opposed Brexit and had threatened UK voters preceding the vote that the UK would fall to "the back of the queue" if they voted to take back their sovereignty.

Concerns about immigration fueled Brexit.

Concerns about immigration fueled Trump to the top tier of the Republican nominees right out of the box and he ultimately defeated 16 other competitors.

Can Trump use Immigrexit similarly to fuel his Presidential hopes this fall?

San Diego County seems to say that he has an opening if he can build trust with voters while also promising to build the wall and showing the temperament for the job by avoiding any Trumpertantrums between now and November.

It's a tall order. Trump has proven he can build tall towers. He needs to prove he can tame his tongue.
If he can, this poll tells me that Immigrexit could be his Brexit.