Immigration Reform: GOP Calls Immigration the Top U.S. Problem, Says New Poll

More so than Democrats, Republicans say the biggest thing wrong right now with the United States is immigration, says a new poll. Democrats however, feel that a dysfunctional government is the reason for our country's problems.

"Twenty-two percent of Republicans or Republican-leaners name immigration as the country's top problem," reports an analysis of the data by Talking Points Memo. The report also says that, "20 percent [of Republicans] named the dysfunctional government, 17 percent named the economy and 9 percent named health care," as the other problems in the U.S. heading into mid-term elections in November.

"Senate Republican candidates in battleground states are launching attack ads against Democrats accusing them of supporting 'amnesty'," reports Politico.com "Leaving pro-immigration reform candidates even more vulnerable and immigration reform even less likely to happen." 

The news about the polling numbers comes ahead of President Barack Obama's plan to use an executive order to move the immigration meter. Many believe he will stay far away from using a blanket "amnesty" as Republicans are suggesting.

Instead, as the White House hinted at earlier this summer, Obama is likey to provide some type of deportation relief for undocumented immigrants who have been living in the U.S. for a while. That relief could also include permits for work, but there's nothing confirmed at this point. The executive order could happen in a matter of weeks, as it was said it would happen after the summer.

Much of the issue of immigration has been hard to take for Republicans, reports say, because of the massive wave of unaccompanied minors who have made their way over the border and number in the hundreds of thousands."

The Gallup Poll, also comes following another recent poll from Tea Party Patriots, reports Breitbart.com, "which found that 34.6 percent of GOP voters believe that stopping the flow of illegal immigration is the most important issue facing the nation," the website said, adding that immigration was "more important to GOP voters than getting to the bottom of the Benghazi or IRS scandals or halting Obamacare."