21% Of Americans Are Willing to Privately Contribute to Build Border Wall

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Congress appears likely to refuse funding again for President Trump’s border wall, but one-in-five voters are willing to dig into their own pockets to privately fund the barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 21% of Likely U.S. Voters say they would contribute money to a private fund set up to build the wall if Congress refuses to fund it. A sizable majority (69%) would not privately contribute, but 10% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

One-in-three Republicans (34%) would contribute to a private fund to build the wall, compared to 10% of Democrats and 21% of voters not affiliated with either major political party.

Voters continue to believe illegal immigration is a major problem, and few feel the government is doing enough to handle it.

But most voters (56%) are not willing to pay anything more in taxes each year to fight illegal immigration. Nineteen percent (19%) are willing to pay an extra $100 each year. Another 19% are willing to pay an extra $300 a year or more, with two percent (2%) who say they would pay more than $1,000 more in taxes each year to fight illegal immigration.

Voters are even less willing to pay to fight illegal immigration than they are to pay higher taxes and utility costs to fight global warming. They’re about equally as likely to pay higher taxes to fight illegal immigration as they are to pay for Obamacare, although voters are slightly more willing to pay an extra $100 a year for the wall than they are for Obamacare.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted on December 12-13, 2018 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

The president has warned that a partial government shutdown is looming following a heated meeting with Democratic leaders in which the two sides failed to come to an agreement over the border wall. Voters are getting more enthusiastic about building the wall, but they’re still not willing to risk a shutdown over it.

Among those who want the United States to build a wall along the Mexican border, 43% would contribute their own money to build it. Thirty-nine percent (39%) would not, but 18% are undecided.

Men are more willing than women to privately contribute and pay more in taxes to build the wall and fight illegal immigration. Blacks are stronger opponents of both ideas than whites and other minority voters.

Even among Republicans, 47% are not willing to pay anything extra in taxes to help fight illegal immigration, while 26% are willing to pay an extra $100 a year only. Most Democrats (66%) and unaffiliateds (55%) aren’t willing to pay any extra taxes to fight illegal immigration.

Half (49%) of voters who Strongly Approve of the job Trump is doing would contribute their own money to build the wall if Congress refuses to fund it. Just 35% of these voters are unwilling to pay any more in taxes to fight illegal immigration. Among voters who Strongly Disapprove of the president’s job performance,  97% are unwilling to privately contribute to building the wall, and 79% aren’t willing to pay any more in taxes.

Illegal immigration and health care are the top voter priorities for the new Congress, but voters aren’t very hopeful that the president and Democrats in Congress can work together.

Most voters (52%) think illegal immigrants are a significant strain on the U.S. budget, and 45% believe illegal immigration increases the level of serious crime in America.

Voters agree the migrant caravans approaching the U.S. southern border through Mexico are a danger to the country and should be stopped at least temporarily.

Fifty percent (50%) think the U.S. military should be used along the border with Mexico to prevent illegal immigration.

Just over half (52%) of voters favor the immigration reform plan detailed by Trump in his State of the Union speech that would create a pathway to citizenship for those brought to this country illegally when they were children, build a wall on the Mexican border and change legal immigration to a more merit-based system.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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Source: Rasmussen Reports