This year tens of thousands of Central American children, fleeing violence and poverty, have been arriving in the U.S. seeking refuge. It’s a stunning story that has been covered widely in the media and Americans’ opinions about immigration have taken a hit.
The Pew Research Center collected data regarding American leniency toward undocumented immigrants in February and July, before and after media coverage of this crisis began. The results show that members of all political parties, on average, are less inclined to allow “immigrants living in U.S. who meet certain requirements” to stay legally (see far right column).
The strongest opponents are Republicans and members of the Tea Party. These groups were more opposed to enabling undocumented immigrants to stay legally to begin with and they showed the greatest change in response to this new crisis.
Republicans and Independents are also more likely than Democrats to think that we should speed up the deportation process, even if it means deporting children who are eligible for asylum.
Comments 15
Mordicai — July 22, 2014
I'd like to think that the problem here is one of cognition & performative trolling, not empathy. One of "let's pretend" in which the people taking the survey only answer in the most inflammatory way possible, in which they pretend that they only way to stand up against The Great Evil is to refuse to help children. I'd like to think that in their real life, if they saw a hurt child fleeing danger, they'd do the right thing. The problem is that their epic game of "let's pretend" is the real life of hurt children fleeing danger.
Kali — July 22, 2014
I think the difference is that the hypothetical situation of "hoards of immigrants" has become more real and people are reacting with fear (of having to share valuable resources) rather than magnanimity. It was OK when there were fewer people crossing the border.
Bill R — July 22, 2014
Polls like this aren't worth all that much when they're conducted during periods of uncertainty as is the case now with immigration.
Having said that we can't afford a large wave of immigration from the south and people are acknowledging that.
ViktorNN — July 22, 2014
This year tens of thousands of Central American children, fleeing violence and poverty, have been arriving in the U.S. seeking refuge.
It is far from clear that all, or even most, of these tens of thousands of Central American children are "fleeing violence and poverty."
Any honest account of the crisis has to mention the fact that many of these illegal immigrants are making the trip because they perceive Obama's DACA policy as a green light aimed specifically at foreign youth.
The Obama Admin itself admits that this misunderstanding is a primary motivator.
This is possibly why so many Americans are opposed to this latest wave of illegal immigration.
Along with ALWAYS having been opposed to illegal immigration (I'm not aware of a single poll where most Americans are cool with illegal immigration), they see this current wave as yet another episode of bad immigration policy producing undesired results.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/21/us/us-plans-to-step-up-detention-and-deportation-of-migrants.html?_r=1
Lori — July 24, 2014
I think we should let them immigrate; put them to work doing the tasks that white middle class teenagers stick their noses up at, and low and behold, we will have more money being contributed into the Social Security system to keep it solvent.