A new poll could shed some light on why immigration is such a divisive issue in the United States. According to Gallup’s Minority Rights and Relations survey, Americans are fairly evenly split on what they think U.S. immigration levels should be:
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. public demonstrates no clear preference on what U.S. immigration levels should be. On this contentious issue, 40% say levels should remain where they are, but only slightly fewer (34%) advocate a decrease in the stream of immigrants. One-quarter of the country prefers an increase in immigration levels, the sole response of the three to see a general increase in support over the past 15 years.
This poll included an oversampling of blacks and Hispanics, in order to obtain “a closer look at attitudes and opinions of minority groups whose representation in the sample of a standard poll might otherwise be too small for statistical analysis.” Unsurprisingly, Hispanics are more in favor of increasing immigration:
Preferences for changes in immigration levels vary considerably by the respondents’ race or ethnicity. Hispanics — half of whom say they are immigrants themselves — are most likely to say immigration levels should be increased (36%), while non-Hispanic whites offer the least amount of support for that proposition (21%). Blacks fall in between the two, at 30%. Despite these differences, the overall trend is similar for all three groups. Support for allowing increased immigration levels hit a low ebb for all races/ethnicities in the years immediately after 9/11, and climbed to new or nearly new highs in 2015.
Additionally, 73% percent of respondents said that immigration is a good thing. However, according to Gallup’s “Bottom Line,” “The current trends suggest that more U.S. adults believe immigration levels should increase than did so a decade ago, but that view still trails the percentage who want levels decreased or kept the same.”
