Majority of Americans disapprove of President Barack Obama's plans to allow more Syrian refugees to settle in the U.S., an issue that sharply divides Americans across party lines, a new poll shows.
While about eight in 10 Republicans disapprove of letting in more refugees from Syria, including 64 percent who strongly disapprove, nearly two-thirds of Democrats support Obama's policy. Some 59 percent of independents are also opposed to the plan, according to the NBC News/SurveyMonkey online poll.
But the overwhelming opinion expressed by the American public, based from the survey, is that the U.S. and its allies are losing the war against the Islamic State (ISIS). A majority of the respondents also support sending American troops to Iraq and Syria to join the fight against ISIS, NBC News reported.
Following the terrorist attacks in Paris, more than half of America's governors have announced that they will not accept new Syrian refugees into their states amid fears that terrorists could be hiding among the refugees coming into the country. At least one of the terrorists killed in the Paris attacks was found to have entered Europe by joining the flood of migrants sweeping into the continent.
About 2,000 of the refugees are already in the U.S., many of them in California and Michigan.
Despite mounting opposition to his plan to bring in more of the refugees into the country, Obama has declared that he would not budge from his earlier decision to accept 10,000 refugees from Syria up to next year.
The poll showed that Obama's approval rating is down by 3 points at 43 percent from last month. This was his lowest approval rating this year as measured in the NBC News/SurveyMonkey online poll.
Showing rejection of Obama's choice of using only U.S. air power to fight the ISIS, a majority of Americans (six in 10) want the country to use overwhelming military force, including ground troops, to finally crush the terrorist organisation.
An overwhelming number of Republican voters (86 percent) say military force is the answer to the problem.
However, 60 percent of Democrats agree with the statement that relying too much on military force creates hatred that leads to more terrorism. Some 55 percent of independents also favour military action to defeat terrorism.
The NBC News online poll was conducted from Sunday through Tuesday among 5,755 adults nationwide as the events in Paris following the terrorist attack were being covered widely in the media. Eighty-one percent of Americans say they were following the news coverage very or somewhat closely.
Amid fears that the terrorists could target their country next, many Americans say their government is not doing enough to reduce the threat of terrorism, with only 45 percent saying the U.S. government's efforts to reduce this threat is going well. This is down from the 62 percent who said so in April of this year.
Some 70 percent of Americans say the U.S. and its allies are losing the fight against ISIS.
Meanwhile, Obama has vowed to veto a bill from House Republicans that would increase screening for Syrian and Iraqi refugees before they enter the U.S., saying the legislation would introduce "unnecessary and impractical requirements" that would harm efforts to assist the refugees, NBC News reported.
The House was set to vote on the legislation Thursday. Democratic leaders opposed the proposed measure, saying it would essentially keep refugees out of the U.S. entirely.
