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February 23, 2014 08:00 pm GMT

A New Poll Showing Why Immigration Reform Probably Wont Pass This Year

3248283617_c23445ea31_zA new poll of Republican voters in Iowa shows why the technology industry may fail to get immigration reform – its top political goal – passed by Congress. The poll shows that 53% of Republicans in Iowa would not vote for a candidate who supported a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented workers living in America illegally. See, the technology industry desperately needs more foreign engineers, but Congress refuses to increase the number of visas for high-tech workers without completely overhauling the entire immigration system. Unfortunately, 2014 is an election year and Republican incumbents could face a backlash at the polls if they compromised to pass a comprehensive bill. Republicans and Democratsdisagree whether the 11 million low-skilled undocumented immigrants should be given a path to citizenship or mere permanent residence. Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, who is in charge of writing the high-tech immigration reform bill in the House of Representatives, told us earlier this year that comprehensiveimmigration reform isn’t likely to happenuntil at least after the 2014 mid-term elections, because it’s too politically risky for Republicans to compromise on a bill that may have to have some path-to-citizenship provision. To test Issa’s idea, TechCrunch conducted another one of our CrunchGov polls* with Google Surveys, looking at whether citizens in a strongly Republican midwestern district would vote for a candidate who supported a bill that allowed undocumented immigrants to become citizens. In the Iowa district of notable immigration reform opponent, Representative Steve King, 53% of self-identified Republicans would not vote for a candidate who favored an eventual path to citizenship for undocumented workers. That compares to 72% (yes, 72%) of Democrats. Republicans fear that unpopular positions could get them kicked out of office by Tea Party-supported candidates, who have been successful in unseating moderate Republicans in past primaries. Our local poll helps explain the opposition to immigration reform in the House of Representatives, despite national polls consistently showing that a majority of the American public supports a path to citizenship. A relative minority of conservatives have persuaded the leadership in the House of Representatives that it’s too political dangerous to pass a bill this year, even though it’s broadly popular. Unlike national polls, a local poll sheds light on the perception that fuels fears in an election year. Iowa is a nice critical test case to demonstrate those fears; if we saw a large majority of Iowans supporting a

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/xEf6ircyqxE/

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