BYRON YORK: Public opinion left out of picture in Obama immigration drive.

Gallup recently asked adults around the country a very simple question about immigration: Are you satisfied, or dissatisfied, with the level of immigration into the United States today? Are too many immigrants coming? Too few? Or is the number just about right?

Before giving the results, it’s important to note what that number is. The U.S. awards legal permanent resident status — a green card, which means lifetime residency plus the option of citizenship — to about one million people per year, a rate Sen. Marco Rubio calls “the most generous” on earth. In addition, the government hands out more than a half-million student and exchange visas each year, tens of thousands of refugee admissions, and about 700,000 visas to temporary workers and their families. The percentage of foreign born in the U.S. population is heading toward levels not seen since the period of 1890 to 1910.

So is that too much, or too little? Gallup found that 47 percent of Americans believe the level of immigration should stay where it is. Thirty-nine percent want to see it decreased. And just seven percent want it increased. (The remaining seven percent said they don’t know.)

Put another way, 86 percent of Americans would like immigration into this country to remain at today’s level or to decrease, versus seven percent who want to see it increase.

Obama doesn’t care about public opinion, since he’s constructing an all-new public more in line with his own views.