Majority of U.S. Citizens Want Expedited Deportations, According to New Pew Research Poll

Over half of all Americans want the deportation process for illegal immigrants from Central America, including children, to be expedited, according to a new poll.

Pew Research released the results of a poll on immigration on Wednesday, and the results are pretty shocking.

According to Pew, the research shows that 53 percent of Americans "think that the legal process for dealing with Central American children who cross the border illegally should be accelerated, even if that means that some children who are eligible for asylum are deported."

That number is divided nearly in half, in an ironic mirroring of Congress' views on immigration. 

The percentage of people supporting the current policy in place on immigration is at a paltry 38 percent. This group is cited as showing "support [over] staying with the current policy, even though the process could take a long time and the children will stay in the U.S. in the interim."

Pew's poll comes on the heels of another immigration survey, in which Gallup found that illegal immigration was the "most important problem" currently facing Americans.

That Gallup poll may be right. With immigration reform splitting the nation nearly down the middle, and with the numbers of undocumented -- and unaccompanied -- Central American children compounding at the border, the humanitarian crisis is shaping up to be much bigger than expected. 

The number of Central American youth crossing the border alone is expected to top 90,000 in 2014, as record-breaking amounts of children are sent through Mexico and into the U.S. by desperate parents from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. 

While the numbers of Republicans who think processing should be sped up is hardly surprising -- 60 percent -- what is surprising ins the number of Democrats chiming in along with them. 46 percent of Democrats favor speeding up the deportation process, and 47 percent of Democrats are fine with the current system.

Given the push back from immigration activists, those numbers -- if correct -- are incredibly surprising. 

The poll, conducted July 8-14, has a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percentage points.