Most Americans are unhappy with the level of both legal and illegal immigration in the United States, according to a new Gallup poll released Thursday.
Sixty percent of respondents said they are dissatisfied with the current level of immigration into the country, while 33 percent said they were satisfied.
The level of dissatisfaction rose 6 percentage points from January 2014, and the level of satisfaction fell five points from 38 percent.
However, the all-time high for immigration dissatisfaction was 72 percent in January 2008.
Thirty-nine percent of dissatisfied respondents said they would like to see immigration levels decrease, while the share of dissatisfied Americans who want more immigration was 7 percent.
The increased level of dissatisfaction comes at a time when the Republican-led Congress is fighting to reverse President Barack Obama's newly proposed executive immigration actions, which shield millions of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. from deportation.
Republicans have said lawsuits will soon be brought against the administration to attempt to stop the executive action, and the GOP is likely to try to block the order through legislation as well, according to The Hill.
While Gallup didn't ask any questions regarding Obama's executive immigration action, the poll did find that the level of dissatisfaction among Republicans was at an all-time high of 84 percent-- up from last year's Republican dissatisfaction level of 65 percent. Independents showed a 54 percent dissatisfaction level while Democrats reported a 44 percent level.
"The president's disputed actions may have had some effect on how Americans perceive immigration levels, providing Republicans additional fodder with which to challenge the president," Gallup's Andrew Dugan wrote. "The number of Americans saying they are dissatisfied with current immigration levels increased by six points and seems mostly driven by self-identified Republicans, although dissatisfaction among Democrats is also up slightly. Still, compared with earlier times this century, a smaller than usual proportion of Americans say they are dissatisfied with immigration levels."
Another recent poll, conducted by Paragon Insights, found that 58 percent of respondents opposed Obama's executive immigration action.
Gallup conducted the cellphone and landline poll from Jan. 5-8 with a random sample of 804 adults aged 18 and older. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
