Americans Still Back Pro-Immigration Policies - Horowitz
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
The abiding strength of our nation is that our economy and culture are continually reinvigorated by successive waves of immigrants. These motivated strivers come to our shores seeking a better life and do the hard work to bring it about. The rest of us reap the benefits. Nearly half of Fortune 500 companies, for example, were founded by immigrants or their children, according to the New American Fortune 500 report. Overall, immigrants are more likely to start businesses of all sizes than people born in the United States. As Ronald Reagan declared, “If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.”
A majority of Americans still recognize the positive value of immigration, despite the non-stop demonizing of immigrants that is a central to the crabbed blood and soil nativism, championed by Donald Trump and his MAGA allies. Specifically, 55% of Americans “say the growing number of newcomers from other countries strengthens American society, as compared to 40% of Americans whom “say the growing number of newcomers from other countries threatens traditional American customs and values,” according to a recently released national survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)
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Similarly, 57% of Americans say that immigrants living in the United States illegally should be provided a path to citizenship and an additional 13% say they should be given permanent residency, found the PRRI national survey. On the other hand, only 25% of Americans believe “all immigrants living in the country illegally should be identified and deported.”
While the saturation-level attacks on immigration and immigrants emanating from the Trump-right and amplified on Fox News and other conservative media outlets have failed to persuade most Americans, they have worked with Republicans whose anti-immigration views have hardened over the past several years. “Republicans (69%) are about twice as likely as independents (37%) and about four more times as likely as Democrats (17%) to say newcomers threaten traditional American customs and values,” reported PRRI. “Though there is now a 52-percentage-point difference between Republicans and Democrats on this question, a little over a decade ago, in 2011, the difference was much lower, at 22 percentage points (Republicans 55% vs. Democrats 33%).”
Along the same lines, a majority of Republicans now embrace replacement theory with 55% completely or mostly agreeing with the statement “immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background.” In contrast, only 12% of Democrats and 27% of Independents agree with that statement. Overall, more than twice as many Americans reject replacement theory than embrace it.
These hardened anti-immigration views among Republicans, combined with the fact that the GOP now controls the House of Representatives, will make it even more difficult to make progress on immigration reform. Despite this difficulty, however, it is important to redouble efforts, seeking incremental moves forward, such as forging a principled compromise that increases funding for border security, overhauls and tightens up the process for seeking asylum, provides permanent residency for Dreamers, and increases legal immigration.
This kind of compromise will not be easy to achieve. The rewards to our nation of doing so, however, make it worth pursuing. With our population aging and our education system no longer the best in the world, our economy needs the infusion of new talent and energy from around the globe more than ever.
We are a nation of immigrants, founded on a commitment to shared values and ideals—not to tribal allegiances of nationality and race. That is our unique strength. It is time to draw on it once again.
Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.
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