A recent poll by YouGov for The Economist showed that most Americans said that if the government stops utilizing U.S. Code Title 42 Section 265, more migrants will come.
A majority, 61% of respondents, said illegal immigration would increase at least somewhat if the government stopped using the provision. Only 18% said it would stay the same, with 6% contending it would decrease.
But 40% of respondents agreed that illegal immigration would increase substantially if the rule, exercised during the COVID-19 pandemic to deport individuals who originate in an infected country, was retired.
A bipartisan consensus also exists, with 54% of Democrats, 72% of Republicans, and 58% of independents holding that the number of illegal immigrants would increase somewhat.
Meanwhile, 51% of respondents support Congress passing legislation that allows border patrol agents to "deport migrants without court hearings when there is no public health justification."
The survey of 1,500 U.S. adults, 1,324 of which are registered voters, was taken from May 6-9. It has a plus or minus 2.8 percentage point margin of sampling error.
It comes as over 11,000 migrants were apprehended at the southern border Tuesday, two days before the government pledged to revoke its use of Title 42. That is 1,000 more than initially predicted by officials.
"We're already breaking, and we haven't hit the starting line," an anonymous Department of Homeland Security official told NBC News.
Now, the U.S. readies for a potentially unprecedented flood of migration as Title 42 officially comes to a close Thursday.
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