A poll released Wednesday shows that the vast majority of Arizonans prefer a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who've been in the United States for an extended period of time, and can meet reasonable criteria for citizenship -- as oppose to simply booting them back to their native countries, where many have them have never set foot.
Believe it or not, even the majority of Arizona Republicans polled favor a pathway to citizenship -- which goes against the old Arizona tradition of deport first, discuss morality later.
According to the survey, 78 percent of Arizonans would support legislation allowing undocumented
"long-time" residents to become citizens "if they pay a fine,
pass a criminal background check here and their nation of origin, get a
taxpayer I.D. number and demonstrate they can speak English."
Of Republicans polled, more than 66 percent supported a pathway to citizenship.
Additionally, as you probably know, Arizona's biggest advocate for kickin' out those pesky messicans, now-former state Senate President Russell Pearce, was booted from office Tuesday night (compliments of his LD 18 constituents), which likely had something to do with his out-of-touch, unreasonable, and flat-out cruel policies when it comes to solving the problem of illegal immigration.
Call us optimists, but Arizonans appear to be turning over a new (more moderate) leaf in terms of how they deal with illegal immigrants.
We want to know what you think, though: are Arizonans really lightening up when it comes to immigration reform, or are recent events just a fluke for the state dubbed the "meth lab of democracy?"
Cast your vote below.
