BREAKING POLL: 57% of Americans say illegal immigration is getting ‘worse,’ 66% say border is in ‘crisis’

The poll, conducted by Rasmussen, found that 66 percent of Americans think the situation at the southern border, in which illegal immigration has spiked to historic levels under Biden’s tenure, is a crisis. 22 percent said that the situation wasn’t a crisis, while 12 percent said they weren’t sure.

Among political parties, Democrats were more likely to say that the situation isn’t a crisis, with 38 percent saying it is not, while 46 percent said it was. Conservatives, and those who responded "other", overwhelmingly said the situation was a crisis, at 82 and 70 percent, respectively.

Broken down by political ideology, a majority of conservatives, 86 percent, said it was a crisis. 58 percent of moderates and 37 percent of liberals responded as such.

The poll also found that a majority of Americans say the problem of illegal immigration is getting worse, at 57 percent. 12 percent said it was getting better, 29 percent said it was around the same, and 2 percent said they weren’t sure.

The number of those who say the problem is getting worse is up from August, which saw 54 percent of Americans respond as such.

47 percent of Democrats said that the situation was around the same as it has been, while 21 percent of the party’s voters said the situation was getting better, and 29 percent said it was getting worse.

Among Republicans, 80 percent said the situation was getting worse, while 13 percent said the situation as about the same, and 7 percent said it was getting better. 65 percent of "other" voters said the situation was getting worse, while 26 percent said it was about the same, and 5 percent said it was getting better.

78 percent of conservatives, 49 percent of moderates, and 27 percent of liberals said the situation was getting worse. Among liberals, the majority, 52 percent, said the situation was about the same as it has been.

The poll was conducted by Rasmussen between May 8 and 10, ahead of Title 42’s expiration, of 982 likely US voters.

The poll comes as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that the Border Patrol had seen a 50 percent drop in the number of encounters "versus what we were experiencing earlier in the week before Title 42 ended at midnight on Thursday."

Mayorkas cautioned though that it was "too early" to tell whether the surge of illegal border crossings has peaked.

In fiscal year 2022, illegal immigration at the southern border reached its peak in May, with 241,136 encounters. Another smaller peak was seen in September of 2022, with 227,547 encounters, according to Customs and Border Patrol statistics.

In fiscal year 2021, which began in the last months of the Trump administration and continued into Biden’s first year, a sharp increase was seen in March, after Biden was inaugurated in late January. From February to March of that year, 70,000 more people were encountered by authorities, and these encounters have remained at elevated levels under Biden’s tenure. Fiscal year 2021’s peak was seen in July of that year, with 213,593 encounters.