Civitas Results: Immigration

Last month the Civitas folks and I debated some question wording about immigration on their poll.

Their question was:

DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH THE DECISION BY THE NORTH CAROLINA COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM TO REQUIRE LOCAL COMMUNITY COLLEGES TO ADMIT 18 YEAR OLD ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND CHARGE THEM OUT-OF-STATE TUITION RATES?

39% said yes and 50% said no. I wrote at the time:

The problem with this is that you're giving respondents two reasons to say no. Some people, probably conservatives, might say no because they don't think illegal immigrants should be able to attend local community colleges. Other people, probably liberals, might say no because they don't think the illegal immigrants should be charged out of state tuition rates if they have lived in North Carolina for much of their lives. Civitas set up the question to elicit a specific answer, and they know that.

Well they asked the question in a much more straight forward fashion this time:

Do you believe illegal immigrants should be allowed to enroll in community colleges and public universities in North Carolina?

This time just 25% said yes and 68% said no. Why less support with a more balanced question wording? I think maybe conservatives said yes to the question wording the first time because they thought of the issue as charging out of state tution vs. in state tuition, rather than the issue being admitting illegal immigrants or not admitting illegal immigrants.

So I will grant to the Civitas guys that public opinion is probably on their side here. Of course they're still wrong on the issue!