More Kentuckians support House's E-Verify approach to immigration than Senate bill, cn|2 Poll shows

More than twice the percentage of Kentuckians surveyed in the cn|2 Poll favor the approach passed by the House than the one pushed by Senators.

More than twice as many Kentuckians prefer the state House bill aimed at curbing illegal immigration than a Senate proposal, according to the cn|2 Poll.

A total of 64% said they favored the House bill that would allow contractors with the state government to access the federal E-Verify system to check whether their employees are in the country legally. The bill, which received wide bipartisan support in the House, calls for penalties for businesses who hire illegal immigrants.

The Senate approved Senate Bill 6 that would give broader powers to state law enforcement agents to arrest anyone they find to be in the country illegally.

In total, 64% of the 804 likely voters surveyed by the cn|2 Poll said they favored the House’s E-Verify plan. In contrast, 25% said they liked the Senate’s approach better.

The cn|2 Poll was conducted Feb. 28 and March 1 by live interviewers from Braun Research of New Jersey. Interviewers contacted likely voters in the 2011 election — those who voted in both gubernatorial elections of 2003 and 2007, as well as younger voters under 24 who said they planned to vote this fall.

Click here to read the details and cross-tabulations of the poll results for legislative issues:

statewide legislative issues 3-2.pdf [881.07KB]

cn|2’s Kenny Colston and Don Weber have tracked all the players in the debate throughout the session. Here’s the Pure Politics report from Frankfort on the status of two different approaches to the immigration issue:

- Ryan Alessi with video produced by Kenny Colston