California is a very blue state these days, but that doesn’t mean the folks have gone over to the evil open-borders side of Satan and his minions. An interesting Field Poll was published 9/28 verbosely titled California Voters Somewhat Ambivalent about Government Policies toward Illegal Immigrants Living Here.

However, the “ambivalent” attitude cited refers to the number of poll respondents who chose “path to citizenship” on the question of what to do with illegals versus all the other responses that showed disapproval of awarding privileges and benefits to lawbreaking foreigners.

There’s no surprise to the skew: the choices given on what to do with illegals omitted the best choice, namely attrition through rigorous law enforcement. Self-deportation clearly avoids the unpleasantries of being busted and then deported, and gets the foreigner home the same way he got here — how empowering! Self-esteem is left intact.

Here’s an explanation taken from the Field report of its polling:

In the survey a random sample of California registered voters were first told “as you may know, there are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, including approximately two and a half million living in California,” and then asked which policy option came closest to their view about what government policy should be toward illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States. The three alternative approaches offered were mass deportation, temporary work permits, and a path to citizenship. In this setting, the large majority of California voters (67%) support a path to citizenship. This compares to 14% who favor allowing temporary work permits and 13% support deportation.

When the choices were reasonable and had to do with costs dumped on taxpayers, Californians were much less forgiving on spending tax money on lawbreakers. Poll responders also rejected handing out state drivers’ licenses (also accepted as universal ID) to sketchy foreigners.

By a 56% to 40% margin California voters oppose allowing illegal immigrants living in the state to get a California driver’s license. However, there are a number of differences in views about this across subgroups of the voting population. [. . .]

Majorities oppose granting illegal immigrants the same entitlements that legal residents of the state get in two other areas – receiving tuition discounts at the state’s public universities (61% to 33%) and having access to government health and financial assistance benefits (65% to 27%).

Unsurprisingly, the media took the more liberal path-to-citizenship characterization, as indicated by headlines, although that spin is not entirely accurate:

FIELD POLL: California voters support path to citizenship, Riverside Press-Enterprise

Poll Shows Most California Voters Want Citizenship Path For Illegal Immigrants, CBS San Francisco

Poll: Calif. voters favor immigrant citizenship, Associated Press

California voters support path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, say no to driver’s licenses, Sacramento Bee