By Keegan Gibson, Managing Editor

Rep. Lou Barletta’s proposal to cut federal funding from “sanctuary cities” that tacitly permit illegal immigration has national appeal, polling firm Rasmussen reported today.

According to their most recent survey, 59 percent of Americans support Barletta’s effort. Only 28 percent are opposed. Not bad for a freshman.

The survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted on May 7, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

“My neighbors in the 11th District know that illegal immigration is a serious problem that affects all of us. It’s good to see that people in the rest of the country feel the same way,” said Barletta of the results. “Elected officials of local municipalities cannot pick and choose the federal laws they enforce. If the elected leaders of these cities choose to ignore federal law, they should not expect to get federal money. That’s just common sense.”

“I stood up against illegal immigration as a mayor because I saw the effect it was having on my small city’s limited budget, not to become famous or popular. Now I can really see that, at the federal level, this problem is costing the American taxpayers billions of dollars a year.”

Barletta achieved national notice when he attempted to crack down on illegal immigration while he was Mayor of Hazleton.

There was some other good news for Barletta today following some of the Congressman’s town hall trouble from last month. The Congressman took some heat when his office suggested that the disruptions were coordinated. Apparently there’s more to the story.

According to the Bloomsburg Press Enterprise (paywall), a Bloomsburg University employee used her school email account to encourage her coworkers to attend the town hall meeting in Espy and confront Barletta.

On the morning of Rep. Lou Barletta’s forum in Espy, a secretary at Bloomsburg University used her work e-mail to ask all other workers on campus to turn out for the meeting.

Joann Kreisher forwarded a message from Columbia County Democratic Chairman Vince DeMelfi that asked people to show up ‘if you aren’t happy with Lou’s vote to change Medicare to a voucher system.’

‘This is something that attacks all of us,’ Kreisher added in her section of the e-mail.

The controversy surrounding the recent Medicare vote, which opponents claim will effectively end the Medicare system as Pennsylvanians know it, reached Rep. Lou Barletta last month.

Two separate meetings, first a town hall in Carbon county, and then another in Columbia county were disrupted by dissatisfied citizens who Barletta’s spokesman, Shawn Kelly alleged were Democratic Operatives who were “following the playbook of trying to disrupt the forum, mislead the public, and scare senior citizens.”

The claims center on the democratic website Moveon.org which sent an email to its supporters that read “Payback Time” and encouraged members to attend both meetings.

James Brackman contributed to this report.