Roughly four in 10 Americans would support building a wall along the Canadian border, according to a new poll.
The Bloomberg poll released Thursday found 41 per cent of U.S. respondents would chose a “brick and mortar” wall along the more than 8,000-kilometre Canadian border, if one were to be built along the Mexico border.
Those surveyed were asked a follow up question on a Mexican border wall: “If a wall is good for the Mexico border, it is good for the Canada border as well?”
A majority of Americans surveyed, 55 percent and 56 percent, said there should not be a wall on the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada, respectively.
READ MORE: Donald Trump’s first policy paper calls for U.S.-Mexico border wall
Immigration has become a hot issue in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign led by the bombastic rhetoric of Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has vowed to build a multibillion-dollar wall across the U.S.-Mexico border and send the bill to the Mexican government.
Trump launched his presidential campaign by attacking Mexican immigrants as drug dealers, criminals and rapists.
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However, the idea of a wall along the U.S.’s northern border was first floated by failed presidential candidate and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Walker suggested that building a wall along the country’s border with Canada is a legitimate issue that merits further review in an interview with NBC’s Meet The Press last August.
“Some people have asked us about that in New Hampshire,” he said. “They raised some very legitimate concerns, including some law enforcement folks that brought that up to me at one of our town-hall meetings about a week and a half ago. So that is a legitimate issue for us to look at.”
Fellow GOP candidates were quick to pounce on the suggestion with Sen. Rand Paull calling it a “dumb idea” and Trump opposing the idea, adding “I love Canada.”
WATCH: Matt Damon mocks Trump by endorsing wall across Canadian border
While illegal immigration may be a constant talking point among Republican candidates, the new poll from Bloomberg found that seven per cent of Americans listed it as top issue facing the country.
Among the important issue facing the U.S. are unemployment and jobs (20 per cent), a decline in real income for U.S. workers (14 per cent), healthcare (11 per cent) and the federal deficit (10 per cent).
The poll surveyed 1,001 American adults over 18 years old,and is accurate within 3.1 percentage points.
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