Immigration Opinion Research Articles

Race, immigration, and Black intergroup politics

ABSTRACT While the literature has established that immigration opinions among African Americans are frequently driven by economic anxieties, less is known about how this co-exists with other factors. I argue that race and distribution of foreign-born immigrants at the local level may be important additional factors in determining African American immigration restrictionist sentiment. OLS regressions were run with robustness checks. Results suggest that African Americans living in counties with high proportions of Black or Asian immigrants may lead to more positive immigration sentiments. I find the opposite for those in high Latino foreign-born counties. Additional results with interactions show the limitations of group competition as a mechanism for this relationship. These findings have implications for the future of intergroup relations and suggest further examining the diverse identities of immigrants and their effects on Black political opinion. As the demographics profile of immigrant groups in the US continues to diversify, it is imperative that we continue to investigate how the increasing ethnic diversity of Black America may be disrupting scholarly knowledge and expectations for the future of intergroup relations in America.

The Asymmetric Polarization of Immigration Opinion in the United States

Abstract In this paper, we analyze trends in Americans’ immigration attitudes and policy preferences nationally and across partisan and racial/ethnic groups. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Democrats and Republicans shared similarly negative attitudes toward immigrants and high levels of support for restrictionist immigration policies. Beginning in the 2010s and continuing through the early 2020s, however, Democrats’ aggregate immigration opinions liberalized considerably. We observed increasingly liberal immigration preferences among Democrats of all racial and ethnic backgrounds after 2016, but this trend was especially pronounced among white Democrats. Among Republicans, opinion on immigration remained mostly stable over this period, although in some cases it became more conservative (e.g., border security) and more liberal on others (e.g., amnesty). The marked liberalization in immigration opinion among Democrats has left partisans more divided on immigration than at any point since national surveys began consistently measuring immigration opinion in the late twentieth century.

Which individual-level factors explain public attitudes toward immigration? a meta-analysis

ABSTRACT Public attitudes toward immigration have attracted much scholarly interest and extensive empirical research in recent years. Despite a sizeable theoretical and empirical literature, no firm conclusions have been drawn regarding the factors affecting immigration opinion. We address this gap through a formal meta-analysis derived from the literature regarding immigration attitudes from the top journals of several social science disciplines in the years 2009–2019 and based on a population of 1185 estimates derived from 144 unique analyses on individual-level factors affecting attitudes to immigration. The meta-analytical findings show that two individual-level characteristics are most significantly associated with attitudes to immigration -- education (positively) and age (negatively). Our results further reveal that the same individual characteristics do not necessarily explain immigration policy attitudes and attitudes toward immigrants' contribution. The findings challenge several conventional micro-level theories of attitudes to immigration. The meta-analysis can inform future research when planning the set of explanatory variables to avoid omitting key determinants.

Immigration as a thermostat? Public opinion and immigration policy across Western Europe (1980–2017)

ABSTRACT An important focus of empirical accounts of representative democracy is the policy-opinion nexus. Drawing from the thermostatic model (Wlezien, 1995), this study examines the dynamic relationship between public opinion and immigration policy, one of the more salient issue domains that have reshaped European democracies since the 1980s. As a counter-factual to social identity accounts of immigration politics, this study argues citizens have policy preferences and when immigration policy changes, the demand responds. The result is a known movement between opinions and policy that we describe as an ‘immigration thermostat’. We rely on dozens of high-quality surveys (more than 500 separate series, corresponding to nearly 2,500 marginals) and a dyadic-ratios algorithm to design comparable immigration opinion measures for 13 countries. We find evidence of both public and policy responsiveness for immigration, although not to the same extent. This suggests an asymmetrical ‘immigration thermostat’ but effective representation in the immigration domain across Western Europe.

Does Occupational Stress Play a Role in Forming Restrictionist Immigration Opinions?

ABSTRACT This study extends the labor market competition perspective of immigration attitudes by examining the influence of occupational stress and employer-sponsored stress management programs on native-born, full-time workers’ opinions toward immigration levels. Binary logit and ordered logit models, with data from the 2018 General Social Survey, test the predictions of three occupational stress theories: job demands-control-support, effort-reward balance, and distributive justice. The results indicate that native-born, non-Hispanic white workers and native-born, Latino workers who are unable to develop their occupational skills on the job have greater odds of favoring reduced immigration. Job insecurity, lack of promotion opportunities, and poor intercolleague respect also negatively affect native-born, non-Hispanic white workers’ immigration opinions, while having to expend greater physical effort and having less time to complete the work negatively affect native-born, Latino workers’ immigration opinions. At the same time, native-born, non-Hispanic white workers who participate in stress management training have significantly greater odds of supporting increased immigration levels and significantly lower odds of desiring lower immigration levels. As immigration to the United States remains strong, understanding the social processes of native-born employee perceptions and the solutions to problematic intergroup relations may benefit individuals, businesses, and the economy.

Nationalism in the ‘Nation of Immigrants’: Race, Ethnicity, and National Attachment

Abstract This paper compares nationalist attitudes among Whites, Latinos, and African Americans. The research on nationalism and national attachment draws varied conclusions about how race and ethnicity structure such attitudes; some find that Whites have the strongest views, while others see more similarities than differences. Using the General Social Survey of 2014, we examine three separate dimensions of nationalism: American nationalism, American national identity, and American national pride. We test for differences across race and ethnicity as well as how such attitudes structure opinions about immigrants. Despite some expectations in the literature that views might vary by group, we generally find (albeit with some complexities) “minimal effects” of race and ethnicity. Latinos, Blacks, and Whites agree with the three nationalism measures at similar levels, despite the very different national histories of each group. This is consistent with work finding “a great deal of consensus on the norms, values, and behaviors that constitute American identity” (Schildkraut 2007. “Defining American Identity in the Twenty-First Century: How Much “There” Is There?”.” The Journal of Politics v69 (3): 597–615, 605). In addition, while nationalism is associated with immigration opinions, such effects are predominantly among Whites and African Americans and relatively weak for Latinos.

COVID-19 Information in Sweden: Opinions of Immigrants with Limited Proficiency in Swedish

ABSTRACT COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of health information for prevention of communicable disease. Knowledge about groups that have high risk is important to prevent disease transmission. In Sweden, immigrants have been identified as one such group. Yet, little is known about where they have sourced information about COVID-19 and their opinions toward it. The aim of this study was to describe the COVID-19 information sources used by immigrants with limited proficiency in Swedish as well as their opinions on how comprehensive the information has been, the importance of the recommendations and their possibility to follow them. A cross-sectional survey was conducted via introductory Swedish language classes in Region Uppsala (n = 855). The results showed the immigrants were using different information sources, with the majority using school, media and social media. The immigrants’ opinions about COVID-19 information differed. Most reported they knew where to find information; however, over two-fifths reported the recommendations from the authorities should be more extensive. The majority reported it is important to follow the recommendations, whereas the possibility to follow the recommendations was more mixed. Age differences in opinions toward COVID-19 information were detected. Although the results were largely positive, there still appears to be a need for improvement in how immigrant groups with limited ability in the host country´s language are reached. Effective health communication that engages the whole nation is an important factor authorities should commit to as we face the current pandemic. This research suggests that an approach tailored by age could be helpful.

Moralizing Immigration: Political Framing, Moral Conviction, and Polarization in the United States and Denmark

Morally charged rhetoric is commonplace in political discourse on immigration but scholars have not examined how it affects divisions over the issue among the public. To address this gap, we employ preregistered survey experiments in two countries where anti-immigration rhetoric has been prominent: the United States and Denmark. We demonstrate that exposure to moralized messages leads respondents to place greater moral weight on their existing immigration opinions and become more averse to political leaders and, in the United States, social interaction partners who espouse opposite beliefs. This suggests that political moralization contributes to moral conflict and affective polarization. We find no evidence, however, that moral framing produces attitudinal polarization—that is, more extreme immigration opinions. Our study helps make sense of the heightened intensity of anti-immigrant politics even when attitudes are stable. It also suggests a promising avenue for comparative research on affective polarization by shifting the focus from partisanship to the moralization of existing issue disagreements.

Debatiendo el racismo en España. ¿Pensamos los españoles que somos más racistas que lo que los inmigrantes declaran?

In this essay we expose some results of my surveys to students about racism since 1986, following in 1993, 1997, 1998, 2002,2004, 2008, and the last one in 2019 (N = 2.476) We divide the text into two parts. The first one talks about the evolution of racism (1986-2019), and the second part shows the opinions of immigrants themselves about their experiences of racism in Spain, according to my life stories and surveys since 1997 out of a total of 3,496. The most important conclusion is that the number of militant racists has decreased, although the minority that remains is more militant, activist, and dangerous. On the other hand, we Spaniards believe that we are more racist than what immigrants declare.

Complicating the Role of White Racial Attitudes and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in the 2016 US Presidential Election.

Some scholars argue that Donald Trump's electoral college victory in 2016 was predicated on his ability to attract racially hostile white voters. Others argue that the increased relationship between whites' racial attitudes and presidential vote choice in 2016 was because racial attitudes and partisanship had become even more aligned following the presidency of Barack Obama. Building on research that shows voters tend to update their policy positions to align with their preferred candidates, we propose a third mechanism that helps account for the strong relationship between whites' racial attitudes and vote choice in 2016. We hypothesize that over the course of the presidential campaign, many whites shifted their survey responses on questions related to race and immigration to align with their support for Trump or Clinton. To test this argument, we use a unique panel dataset from surveys conducted by YouGov of more than 5,000 respondents interviewed at multiple points during the 2016 presidential election campaign. We find that the strong link between white attitudes toward Black Americans and Trump support observed in prior studies is likely due as much to white Trump supporters updating their survey responses to report opinions more consistent with Trump's, as it is to Trump drawing support from more racially antagonistic white voters. Similar results emerge with respect to whites' immigration opinions. These findings complicate our understanding of the 2016 election by offering direct evidence that Trump's campaign benefited from and catalyzed racial divisions. The results also hold implications for how we study election and campaign effects and the stability of race and immigration attitudes.

From Stability to Polarization: The Transformation of Canadian Public Opinion on Immigration, 1975-2019

ABSTRACT Canadians hold favorable views about immigration, at least compared to many countries. Was it always so? Two survey series, using Environics and Gallup/Canadian Election Studies (CES) data, respectively, show that opinion on immigration was historically rather negative, became more positive from 1995 to 2005, and then stabilized. Native-born Canadians are now almost as positive toward immigration as immigrants themselves. However, recent aggregate stability masks a sharp polarization post-2005. Panel data from 2004 to 2011 shows that respondents who want less immigration are more likely to shift their partisanship to the right. Conversely, there is no evidence that immigration opinion systematically changed to match partisanship. This suggests that the predominant mechanism is sorting, rather than opinion change, at least in the period examined. Finally, is immigration likely to become an increasing source of political conflict in Canada? It depends on how competition at both ends of the political spectrum structures the interests of the major parties.

Correcting Citizens’ Misperceptions about non-Western Immigrants: Corrective Information, Interpretations, and Policy Opinions

AbstractCan corrective information change citizens’ misperceptions about immigrants and subsequently lead to favorable immigration opinions? While prior studies from the USA document how corrections about the size of minority populations fail to change citizens’ immigration-related opinions, they do not examine how other facts that speak to immigrants’ cultural or economic dependency rates can influence immigration policy opinions. To extend earlier work, we conducted a large-scale survey experiment fielded to a nationally representative sample of Danes. We randomly expose participants to information about non-Western immigrants’ (1) welfare dependency rate, (2) crime rate, and (3) proportion of the total population. We find that participants update their factual beliefs in light of correct information, but reinterpret the information in a highly selective fashion, ultimately failing to change their policy preferences.

Priming Legality: Perceptions of Latino and Undocumented Latino Immigrants

Previous work has shown public opinion toward immigrants is malleable based on how immigrants are described in media and elite rhetoric. In a survey experiment on a nationally representative sample of American adults, we extend this research to test for possible priming effects that occur based on how salient documentation status is when respondents proffer opinions on Latino immigrants. Our findings show that when subjects are first asked about “undocumented Latino immigrants,” their attitudes toward “Latino immigrants,” appear more negative, relative to when they are first asked about “Latino immigrants” without invoking the legal modifier. Respondents channel their negative associations with “illegal” or “undocumented” immigration into their opinions of Latino immigrants writ large. The results have implications for political communication, media reporting on immigration, and policy debates, which frequently discuss both “legal” and “undocumented” immigration in the same context.

Economic anxiety or ethnocentrism? An evaluation of attitudes toward immigration in the U.S. from 1992 to 2017

ABSTRACT Does “economic anxiety” explain attitudes toward immigration or can we better understand attitudes toward immigration as an outcome of ethnocentrism? This is a long-standing empirical debate in immigration opinion research and a debate that has struggled to distinguish the relative effects. I help settle this debate with a battery of analyses on attitudes toward immigration across the American National Election Studies and Voter Study Group data, spanning analyses on immigration opinion for white Americans from 1992 to 2017 with economic data at levels as granular as the state, county, core-based statistical area (CBSA), and the ZIP code. My analyses are unequivocal that ethnocentrism is reliably the largest and most precise predictor of attitudes toward immigration. Further analyses and simulations from models most consistent with the economic anxiety argument show that a standard deviation increase in ethnocentrism is still a greater or equal magnitude effect than all economic anxiety proxies combined. I close with implications for immigration opinion research.

Responsiveness and the macro-origins of immigration opinions: Evidence from Belgium, France and the UK

Throughout recent decades, social science studies have systematically reported that citizens respond to their macro-social environments. While this is typically true in highly visible and salient policy domains, scholarship remains ambiguous about which macro-environmental factors are at the origins of citizens’ opinions on immigration. We contribute to this debate by theorising three factors that have the potential to move immigration opinions and subsequently testing their empirical relevance. We most notably emphasise the role of immigration itself and ask whether and how increasing immigration levels affect immigration opinions. We then examine to what extent the regional power structure and economic hardship interplay with this relationship. Through the dyadic ratios algorithm, we estimate a unique set of immigration opinion measures across regions in Belgium, France and the UK between 1990 and 2015. When modelling these measures, our findings are threefold. First, citizens are responsive to their environments, and specifically to immigration. Second, citizens become more favourable towards immigrants when immigration levels increase. Third, we find evidence that decentralisation (regional power) conditions this empirical relationship, while there is little to no indication that economic conditions affect immigration opinions, either directly or indirectly.

Ethnocentrism versus group-specific stereotyping in immigration opinion: cross-national evidence on the distinctiveness of immigrant groups

ABSTRACTWhile widespread resistance to immigration is well established in advanced democracies around the world, the role of group-specific stereotyping in anti-immigration sentiment has received limited attention. We derive a novel measurement model to assess stereotyping in three Anglo-Saxon democracies – the US, Canada, and the UK – of the modal outgroup in each country (Hispanics in the US and South Asians in Canada and the UK) and Middle Easterners/Muslims. We show that considerable variation exists in degree of stereotyping against the two major immigrant groups. In the US case, we additionally document over-time variation in group stereotyping. In a final step, we demonstrate a relationship between group antipathies and immigration policy views, akin to other policy domains in which public support varies by the ethnic characteristics of policy beneficiaries. To our knowledge, this study is the first to map stereotypes of Muslims in the US in a comparative setting and over time after 09/11, and amongst the first to link views on immigration policies to group-based stereotypes.

The Search for Fair Agency Process: The Immigration Opinions of Judge Michael Daly Hawkins 1994 to 2010

Judge Michael Daly Hawkins has been a member of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals since 1994; but he has been concerned with the forms and varieties of administrative or bureaucratic process his entire career. When he became a member of the federal judiciary, his role was clearly altered. However, his commitment to fairness and integrity in adjudication remained undiminished. This article will explore some of Judge Hawkins’s many immigration decisions, both majority and dissenting opinions, which reflect his commitment to the preservation of a due process.The reality of immigration adjudication in the Ninth Circuit is that there are a vast number of non-precedential, “unpublished” decisions issued by three judge panels with a heavy role for the staff attorneys drafting all or parts of the opinion. It is in this context that we examine the key immigration cases of Judge Hawkins, knowing that no immigration opinion can be written in the Ninth Circuit without an understanding that perhaps one hundred or more immigration cases may be decided in a month within the Ninth Circuit alone.

Immigration, public opinion and the recession in Europe

It is widely believed that the recent recession has soured public attitudes towards immigration. But most existing studies are cross-sectional and can shed little light on the economy-wide forces that shift public opinion on immigration. In this paper I use the six rounds of the European Social Survey (2002-2012) to test the effects of macro-level shocks on immigration opinion for 20 countries. For Europe as a whole the shifts in opinion have been remarkably mild but with differences between countries that reflect the severity of the recession. Pro-immigration opinion is negatively related to the share of immigrants in the population and to the share of social benefits in GDP, but only weakly to unemployment. These effects are common across different socioeconomic groups and there is little evidence of divergence in opinion. The continuing rise in support for right wing populist parties during the recession owes more to growing Euro-scepticism than to a surge in anti-immigrant sentiment.

The Mediating Role of Emotions

Emotions play an important role in explaining why news framing has effects on opinions about immigration. Yet, our knowledge regarding which emotions are relevant for different types of news frames is limited. This survey experiment ( N = 715) determines to what extent positive and negative emotions mediate framing effects about immigration, and whether mediation depends on the type of frame at stake. We exposed participants to one of four preestablished frames: the emancipation, multicultural, assimilation, or victimization frame. Results show that the emancipation and multicultural frames cause the most emotional response. Positive emotions function as mediators of framing effects on immigration opinions.

Police the Border: Justice Field on Immigration as a Police Power

Police the Border: Justice Field on Immigration as a Police Power ADAM CARRINGTON Many in our political discourse celebrate America as “a nation of immigrants.” Yet who may immigrate to the United States is a subject of recurring and contentious debate. Legislation in 1986 sought to curb future illegal immigration while legalizing certain current residents.1 Nearly two decades before that, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1965 greatly liberalized immigration policy, lifting severe restrictions on move­ ment from places such as Asia and Eastern Europe. Many such restrictions dated back as far as the late nineteenth century, a period of increasing restriction culminating in the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924.2 In these various phases ofimmigration policy, three important questions continuously emerged. What pur­ poses should immigration policy pursue? Moreover, who may pursue such purposes within the American system of federalism— the national government, the states, or both? Finally, how far does this power of govern­ ment extend within the domestic/foreign policy divide? The Supreme Court’s contribution to this debate also extended back to the latter halfof the nineteenth century. Here, the Court first addressed immigration policy’s purposes as well as which government entities may pursue them. This article examines how one of the period’s most influential Justices— Stephen J. Field—answered these questions, drawing on his opinions in some of the first Court cases to review restrictive immigration legislation. Justice Field answered these questions in the context of declaring immi­ gration regulation to be a police power. In so doing, Field uniquely stated immigration both to be an exclusively national police power and one whose purpose lay in protecting individual rights. He further refined these claims by giving significant attention to immigration’s place along the divide between domestic and foreign policy, arguing that the national government only owed rights’ protection to its own citizens and to those non-citizens residing within United States’ jurisdiction. JUSTICE FIELD ON IMMIGRATION AS A POLICE POWER 21 Justice Field was particularly suited for examining these matters. Appointed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, Field served on the nation’s highest bench for thirty-four years, retiring in December of 1897. He is best known as one of the earliest articulators of Fourteenth Amendment “sub­ stantive due process” and “liberty of con­ tract”3 as they related to state police power legislation. These judicial concepts, which Field most notably articulated through dis­ senting opinions in the Slaughterhouse Cases and Munn v. Illinois, gained a consistent majority on the Court near the end of Field’s tenure—a majority that lasted until the New Deal “Switch in Time” in 1937. In addition to his well-known work on the Fourteenth Amendment and police power, Field also took a leading role in the Court’s first considerations of restrictive immigration legislation. These laws reacted to increased Chinese immigration to California, Field’s home state and the epicenter of his circuit­ riding duties. Between 1884 and 1893, Field wrote three important Supreme Court opin­ ions in these cases, articulating his distinct understanding of immigration as a police power whose purpose lay in protecting rights and whose exercise rested with the national government wherever it held sovereign jurisdiction. This article presents a new angle of investigation on these matters. Much schol­ arship exists on Justice Field’s police power jurisprudence as it pertained to the Fourteenth Amendment. A few scholars also have addressed Field’s immigration opinions.4 This article, however, links the two by considering Field’s claim that immigration was a form of a national police power. In so doing, this work also provides a new perspective on Field’s understanding of police power in general, both in its purpose ofprotecting individual rights and its scope as a power of the national—not just the state— governments.5 Looking to Field, we first articulate his general conception of police power. Unique on the Court at his time, Field was one of the first Justices to explicitly ground police power in the protection of individual rights instead of merely federal­ ism. He was also the first Justice to discuss the concept of a national police power, doing so in several...