WASHINGTON — During his return to Butler County on Saturday, former President Donald Trump delivered his familiar complaints about illegal immigration and again proposed "mass deportation" as the solution, but a survey of Pennsylvanians conducted by the University of Maryland suggests the former president's policy is out of step with what most Pennsylvanians — including a majority of Republicans — actually think.

"They're taking their gang members and their criminals, they're taking their people in jail, and they're releasing them into our country," Trump thundered from the stage. "We're going to deport these people. We're going to get them out of our country immediately. Or we won't have a country."

But even as most polls show Trump is preferred over Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration, his policy prescription is not the one that Pennsylvanians prefer, according to survey results released Thursday.

A majority of Keystone State residents — 55% — who participated in the study by the University of Maryland's Program for Public Consultation said they favored a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants now living in the U.S.

That's almost double the 28% who said they favor deportation, which Trump said he would accomplish using the military, National Guard and local law enforcement.

Even Pennsylvania Republicans weren't enamored with deportation, with just 42% approving — the same percentage that supported a path to citizenship.

There were an estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States in 2022, including 230,000 in Pennsylvania, according to the Pew Research Center.

The American Immigration Council, a pro-immigration group, said that deporting them all, plus 2.3 million additional migrants who crossed the border without legal status from January 2023 to April 2024 and were released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, would cost almost $968 billion over a decade.

"They hear about 11 million people, and deporting them is very expensive and would be very disruptive to the economy," said Steven Kull, director of the University of Maryland's Program for Public Consulation.

"There also are compelling arguments that citizenship would be amnesty and we have to hold the line. When they put them together, I think the question of feasibility and the impact on the economy of this mass deportation just didn't seem feasible."

Under the proposal outlined to participants, undocumented immigrants who have been living in the country for years and have not committed any serious crimes would be eligible for a visa that would allow them to seek citizenship after several years if they pay a penalty and back taxes. Those who do not apply for the visa or do not qualify for it could be deported.

"We're talking about people who don't have criminal records, who are required to pay their taxes, they don't get special treatment, they have to go to the back of the line in terms of applying for citizenship," Kull said.

Among other proposals that the participants considered: Large majorities in Pennsylvania favored making the border more secure, including hiring more Border Patrol agents and increasing surveillance (76% in favor and 24% against); hiring more judges to handle requests for asylum (58% to 42%); expanding a wall along the southern border (61% to 39%); requiring employers to use E-Verify to ensure that the workers they hire are legal residents (70% to 30%); and increasing work visas to meet demand (67% to 33%).

Kull said the popular proposals that received majority support basically are the ones included in the bipartisan 2013 immigration bill that strengthened border security while allowing a path to citizenship to migrants already in the U.S. illegally.

The measure was assembled by eight senators known as the "Gang of Eight." Five of them still are in office — Democrats Chuck Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois, and Michael Bennet of Colorado, and Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida. Their proposal passed the Senate with a filibuster-proof majority, but House Republican leaders refused to bring it up for a vote.

"All of the major elements are covered here, and all of them get majority support," Kull said. "There's a kind of coherent, overarching theme, which is to increase legal channels and also increase border security and also deter illegal crossings."

Immigration was rated as the third most important issue for Pennsylvania voters in a Muhlenberg College/Morning Call poll released last month. But that was because more than a fifth of registered Republicans cited it as a top concern, compared with only 2% of registered Democrats.

Likely Pennsylvania voters in last month's New York Times/Siena College poll said Trump would do a better job than Harris on handling immigration by 53% to 44%.

Trump has leaned hard into anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail, blaming immigrants for "poisoning the blood of our country" and saying on Monday that the fact that some immigrants have committed crimes means "we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now."

That drew this response from White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre: "Well, that type of language is hateful, it's disgusting, it's inappropriate and has no place in our country."

The Brookings Institution reported last month that unauthorized immigrants take jobs that Americans and legal migrants don't want. While just 2% of legal immigrants and 1% of U.S.-born employees work as housekeepers, construction laborers or cooks, almost 6% of unauthorized immigrants work in those fields, the research group said.

And deporting immigrants would reduce the demand for goods and services, meaning businesses such as car dealerships, supermarkets and beauty parlors would have fewer jobs available, even for U.S.-born workers, the group said.

Trump also said in Butler County that the current administration would destroy entitlement programs such as Social Security "because all of the migrants coming in are going on between Medicare, Social Security, other programs, and nobody is able to afford it."

A study by the progressive Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that unauthorized immigrants pay $96.7 billion in federal, state and local taxes — with more than a third of that, $33.9 billion, taken out of their paychecks to pay for Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance programs for which they are ineligible and from which they cannot benefit.

"The talking point that they're draining all those resources out of that is actually the opposite," said Jon Whiten, ITEP's deputy director. "They're contributing billions of dollars in taxes to shore up Social Security and Medicare, and they cannot access the programs legally. That is a sadly ironic twist of fate."

In Pennsylvania, unauthorized immigrants pay $523.1 million in state and local taxes, and that amount would rise to $667 million if they are allowed to remain in the U.S. legally, the group said.

Many are taxed at a higher rate than legal workers because they're ineligible for breaks that otherwise would lower their tax bill, including the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

And Pennsylvania is one of 40 states where unauthorized immigrants are taxed at a higher rate by state and local governments than the richest taxpayers within their borders, the group said. Unauthorized immigrants in Pennsylvania pay an effective state and local tax rate of 9%, while the top 1% pays 6%, the institute said.

"We know that the undocumented population is here and they're paying taxes and working," Whiten said. "We were even surprised about how large the revenue numbers were. It really speaks to the need to figure out a comprehensive reform at the federal level that can allow people who are here to stay and get legal status, continue working, continue supporting the economy and continue paying taxes."

The survey was conducted Sept. 23-Oct. 1 with 601 adults in Pennsylvania. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5%.

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