Even Most White Evangelicals Don’t Support Trump Taking Kids From Families
January 3rd 2020
Detention facility in McAllen, Texas (US Customs and BorderPatrol)
By Emily Singer
Donald Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents at the border is unpopular — even with white evangelical voters, according to a new poll published Thursday by the Associated Press.
White evangelical voters are known to support Trump in large numbers. But while 8 in 10 white evangelicals approve of Trump, half of those same voters disapprove of his policy of separating families at the border, the poll found.
Trump’s family separations were a major story of the last year, with thousands of children — hundreds of them under the age of 5 — being taken from their parents as they seek asylum at the United States’ border with Mexico.
Harrowing stories about the separated children being terrified and not receiving adequate food, shelter, or medical carehave emerged. And a handful of children even died in United States custody.
Those same white evangelicals also bucked Trump on some other key issues.
For example, white evangelicals support higher taxes on the rich, the poll found. Trump’s tax plan, however, cut taxes on the wealthy as well as major corporations — some of which now pay no federal income tax at all.
And the poll showed that roughly half of white evangelicals support increasing government aid to poor Americans. That’s the opposite of what the Trump administration is doing, as hundreds of thousands of poor Americans are set to lose food stamps and free school meals under a Trump proposal.
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