Last modified: Thursday, May 31, 2007 9:32 PM EDT GUEST COLUMN: Immigration views complicated BY CHRIS LINDEHAN New polls show that the Kennedy/Bush Comprehensive Amnesty is not catching on. The facts, not opinions, are below. Only 26 percent of Americans favor the Senate bill in a Rasmussen poll conducted after the Senate voted to bring the amnesty to the floor for debate and after it voted against eliminating the guest worker part of the bill. Another 26 percent of Americans don't know what to think, and 48 percent are opposed. Rasmussen reports: "Advocates of 'comprehensive' reform have taken to arguing that those who want an enforcement-only policy must explain how they would deal with the 12 million illegal aliens already living in the country. The public reaction to that question appears to be 'Why?' Only 29 percent of voters say it is very important for the 'government to legalize the status of illegal aliens already in the United States.'" 70 percent of Americans say total legal and illegal immigration is too high, when told the numbers, according to a Pulse Opinion Research poll released this week. Rosemary Jenks, Numbers USA's director of government relations, has finally worked her way through every page and word of the Senate bill. She calculates that in addition to giving amnesty to 12-20 million illegal aliens, S. 1348 will increase legal immigration by another 302,000 a year. Yet, the Pulse Opinion Research poll finds that only 8 percent of Americans think current legal immigration of one million a year is too low. Attrition through enforcement and self-deportation is by far the most popular option for dealing with 12-20 million illegal aliens (79 percent), the Pulse Opinion Research poll found. We know that polls tend to be bogus because they usually offer people only a choice between "legalization" and mass deportations. They rarely offer the third option of enforcing the laws and causing illegal aliens to go home over time. As far as I know, every time the third option is offered, it gets the most agreement. But this latest poll does show a great deal of ambivalence and probably ignorance about what to do with the 12-20 million illegal aliens already living here. For example, when asked simply if they favored allowing "12 million illegal aliens here to be legalized and offered citizenship after they pay a fine, learn English and undergo a background check," 60 percent said yes. But when asked if they favored "a large-scale effort to round up and deport the 12 million illegal immigrants in the country, " 64 percent said yes to that. Obviously, a lot of Americans can favor both an amnesty and mass roundups. However, when offered, a "third proposal ... to reduce the illegal immigrant population over time by enforcing existing immigration laws ... (including) increased border enforcement, penalizing employers who hire illegals and more cooperation with local law enforcement," 79 percent supported that attrition through enforcement option. Those questions show that Attrition Through Enforcement is definitely the favorite option, but they also show that the majority of Americans can imagine supporting an amnesty, as well. Perhaps this ambivalence is a result of Americans having so few examples and so few officials who offered any sign of credibility that anything would work - so they just grasp at everything. As you can see, these findings are completely different from the polling that is constantly described in the news media and by the open-borders members of Congress. CHRIS LINDEHAN lives in South Attleboro.