The majority of Americans are worried about illegal immigrants destroying their way of life

(NaturalNews) A new survey shows that a wide majority of Americans are increasingly concerned about the negative effects of illegal immigration on the nation's culture and economy.

The survey comes as President Barack Obama hints that he may consider new actions to sidestep Congress and implement key provisions of immigration reform per executive order, actions that would likely be constitutionally suspect at best.

According to the survey, 70 percent of Americans believe that illegal aliens threaten traditional U.S. customs and beliefs, Reuters reported, citing the poll results.

"The findings suggest immigration could join Obamacare - the healthcare insurance overhaul - and the economy as hot button issues that encourage more Republicans to vote in November's congressional election," the newswire service reported.

'Much of the rest of the nation may not welcome that'

Congress has spent months considering and debating broad new immigration reforms, many having to do with conferring legal status -- amnesty -- on millions of people in the country illegally. But as the survey indicates, one reason for congressional inaction is likely because lawmaker constituents are not supportive of those ideas.

Nevertheless, Obama is considering executive action that could provide work permits to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants while delaying deportation proceedings against others.

"Hispanic and liberal voters would welcome that, but the online survey suggests much of the rest of the nation may not," Reuters said.

The administration and some business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have argued that conferring legal status on undocumented persons would be a boon to the economy, but 63 percent of those surveyed in the online poll said immigrants actually place more of a burden on the economy, because the majority are poor and uneducated, meaning they would qualify for multiple taxpayer-funded benefits.

Lingering angst over Obamacare and concerns about the flat economy have been key concerns among voters, but increasingly, immigration is creeping into the national consciousness, especially as tens of thousands of illegal immigrants pour across the U.S. Southwest border.

"Even 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the U.S.-Mexico border, the immigration debate is catching fire in New Hampshire. Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown last week launched a TV ad attacking Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen for 'pro-amnesty policies' on immigration which he says she shares with Obama," said Reuters.

Brown is trailing his potential Democratic opponent by 10 points, and he has yet to win his own party's primary, but his is the first ad by a major candidate for the U.S. Senate to hit on the immigration issue and the ongoing border crisis.

'I don't think he has the right to make those decisions'

And when Brown talked to voters at a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in Kingston, N.H., in early August, most of the audience's questions focused on the issue of immigration. One woman asked Brown, a former U.S. senator from Massachusetts, how federal authorities could ensure that any child migrants from Central America sent to the state were disease-free, even though it was not clear if any had been settled in the state.

In Denver, poll respondent Tom Vanderbur, 72, hit Congress for going into summer recess without passing any border security measures. He also said he was not convinced that Obama should act on his own on immigration.

"I don't think that he has a right to just make those kinds of decisions on his own," said retiree Vanderbur, a registered Democrat in a state where another U.S. Senate seat is going to be hotly battled over this fall. Vanderbur was among the 45 percent in the survey who said legal immigration should be reduced as well; just 17 percent said they thought legal immigration to the U.S. should be increased.

"If Obama starts using executive orders to grant citizenship or to stop deportations I think he gives Republicans a big opening," Jennifer Duffy, of the Cook Political Report analyst group, told Reuters. "It'll be about the issue at hand, immigration, but it also feeds into this Republican narrative of overreach, of sort of abusing his power."

Sources:

http://www.reuters.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://www.breitbart.com