Views on immigrants changing, poll says
WASHINGTON — Americans are more worried about legal immigrants committing crimes in the US than they were a few years ago, a change driven largely by increased concern among Republicans, while Democrats continue to see a broad range of benefits from immigration, a new poll shows.
The poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that substantial shares of US adults believe that immigrants contribute to the country’s economic growth, and offer important contributions to American culture. But when it comes to legal immigrants, US adults see fewer major benefits than they did in the past, and more major risks.
About 4 in 10 Americans say that when immigrants come to the US legally, it’s a major benefit for American companies to get the expertise of skilled workers in fields like science and technology. A similar share (38 percent) also say that legal immigrants contribute a major benefit by enriching American culture and values.
Both those figures were down compared with 2017, when 59 percent of Americans said skilled immigrant workers who enter the country legally were a major benefit, and half said legal immigrants contribute a major benefit by enriching American culture.
Meanwhile, the share of Americans who say that there’s a major risk that legal immigrants will commit crimes in the US has increased, going from 19 percent in 2017 to 32 percent in the new poll.
Republicans were more likely than Democrats to say that immigration is an important issue for them personally, and 41 percent now say it’s a major risk that legal immigrants will commit crimes in the US, up from 20 percent in 2017.
Overall, Republicans are more likely to see major risks — and fewer benefits — from immigrants who enter the country legally and illegally, although they tend to be most concerned about people who come to the country illegally.
Many Republicans, 71 percent, say there’s a risk of people in the country illegally coming to the US and committing crimes, although many studies have found immigrants are less drawn to violent crime than native-born citizens. Even more, 80 percent, think there’s a major risk that people in the country without permission will burden public service programs, while about 6 in 10 Republicans are concerned that there’s a major risk of them taking American jobs, that their population growth will weaken American identity or that they will vote illegally — although only a small number of noncitizen voters have been uncovered.
Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to see benefits from immigration, although the poll did find that only half of Democrats now think that legal immigrants are making important contributions to American companies, a decrease of more than 20 percentage points from 2017. But they’re more likely than Republicans to say that the ability of people to come from other places in the world to escape violence or find economic opportunities is extremely or very important to the US’s identity as a nation.
The poll of 1,282 adults was conducted March 21-25. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.