4 in 5 Americans Want Less Immigration

4 in 5 Americans Want Less Immigration​

By John Whitaker
January 23, 2018

According to a new Harvard-Harris poll, 81 percent of Americans want a reduction in immigration levels to 1 million or lower. Last year over 1.4 million legal immigrants arrived in America, while the number of illegals is unknown.

The Free Beacon reports:

The plurality of respondents, 35 percent, think that there should be between 1 and 250,000 legal immigrants arriving to the United States per year. A net 12 percent want to see immigration increased to 1.5 million people per year or more, while nine percent of Americans think that there should be no new legal immigrants.
Plurality preference for between 1 and 250,000 new immigrants a year persists across white, Hispanic, and black Americans, as well as moderates and self-identified Democrats. . .
Americans prefer a system of prioritizing would-be legal immigrants based on their ability to contribute, based on their education and skills, over one based on immigrants having relatives in the United States, 79 to 21 percent. That includes a majority of white (79 percent), Hispanic (72 percent), and black (85 percent) citizens, as well as majorities of Democrats (72 percent), liberals (65 percent), and Clinton voters (72 percent).​

The poll clearly shows that the majority of Americans are against mass immigration, and that support for this crosses racial and ideological lines—it’s as close to a non-partisan issue as you can get.
~snip~
A multitude of other data supports the conclusion that immigration hurts America’s economy—if only the mainstream media would report on them. [https://nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2017/08/04/mass-immigration-hurts-economy/]


Source: https://nationaleconomicseditorial.com/2018/01/23/americans-want-less-immigration/

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Yet, Chuck Schumer and his lemmings were willing to die on the hill of fighting for illegal aliens. He thought that this is a winning issue for Democrats, to fight for the illegals. Why did he go to the mat on it?
Schumer is many things, some unprintable, but he’s supposed to be a smart politician. Why did he pick an issue which is unpopular even among mainstream Democrats to fight over?
According to the latest polling data released Monday by the Harvard-Harris poll, eighty-one percent (81%) of Americans want one million or fewer legal immigrants to the United States per year, a number lower than the 1.38 million who came to the United States in 2015.
Nothing about illegals or border wall.
A recent, and extremely comprehensive study produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine looked at the impact of mass immigration on America’s economy.
The only people who want more immigration are those who HATE Americans and our original Judeo-Christian European heritage.

 

Seal the border until all here assimilate to American culture.

 

Even 1 million is too high. Bring into this country people who want to be Americans, adapt to our way of life and leave their shithokles behind like my grandparents did. The people who are coming here now want to turn America into Mexico and, for purposes of being politically correct, Asia.

 

It is important to understand poll methodology and interpret results correctly rather than swallow the self-serving distortions of spinmeisters.

Americans could be forgiven for having poll whiplash this week.

"Shock poll: Americans want massive cuts to legal immigration," said a headline from the Washington Times.

"Americans broadly embrace the Democratic immigration position," declared a Washington Post headline, with the release of a new ABC/Washington Post poll.

On immigration, as on any other issue, it can seem that there's a poll result that supports just about any position. Here's a look at immigration polls to explain what findings are shaky — and to highlight what can reasonably be concluded about Americans' views on immigration.

Question wording matters

Deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley touted a Harvard Harris poll on Morning Edition Tuesday, saying that it showed Americans support the president's agenda.

"It's an 80-percent issue, people want to close down the borders," he told NPR's Rachel Martin. "It's a 70-percent issue to end chain migration. [A] 68-percent issue to end the visa lottery program and ask people to come here on merit. That's a 70-percent issue. And this is a study from Harvard."

First things first — there's a lot more to these poll numbers than Gidley is saying.

That Harvard poll didn't find that 8 in 10 Americans want to "close down the borders." Rather, it asked Americans, "Do you think we should have basically open borders or do you think we need secure borders?"

Given the choice between "open borders" — a position that literally zero mainstream political leaders are even proposing — and a "secure border," which is current U.S. policy, 79 percent of Americans agreed that the U.S. needs "secure borders."

It is true that 68 percent of Americans said they oppose "the lottery that randomly picks 50,000 people to enter the U.S. each year for greater diversity." And in fact, even more (79 percent) favored merit-based immigration over family-based migration, based on a question asking whether "immigration priority for those coming to the U.S. should be based on a person's ability to contribute to America as measured by their education and skills or based on a person having relatives in the U.S."

But then, that question provides an argument for using education and skills as a factor ("ability to contribute to America") but not for using family ties. It's also possible that the question gave some respondents the idea of a false choice.

"It shouldn't have to be an either-or," said Randy Capps, director of research for U.S. programs at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based immigration think tank.

It's possible, he added, for a system to incorporate both "merit" and family ties.

"You can have both — you get more points for having higher education, you get more points for knowing English, you get more points for having a close relative," he said.

Right now, both family and merit-based immigration exist in the U.S., though far more — around two-thirds — is based on family ties, according to Capps. Meanwhile, around 15 percent of admissions to the country are related to jobs and skills. On top of that, there are diversity visas, visas for investors who create jobs and allowances for refugees.

The numbers shift depending on how the question is asked. In a Morning Consult/Politico poll from August 2017, there was a question asking if an immigration deal should place "greater emphasis on an applicant's job skills over their ties to family members." Fifty-six percent either strongly or somewhat supported this, while 42 percent opposed it. That's still a majority who favor merit over family, but it's a smaller majority.

That poll asked these questions yet another way and found that 60 percent of Americans believe that "ties to family members in the United States" "should be a factor" in determining who should get to legally immigrate to the U.S. It also found that 57 percent believe education should be a factor, and that 54 percent believe "professional or academic achievement" should factor in.

In other words, when it's not presented as an either-or choice, Americans appear to have a more nuanced view on family-versus merit-based immigration.

What Americans do seem to believe

Americans' support on any given issue can jump around over time, and depending on when and how the questions are asked, the answers can be interpreted any number of ways. But based on an array of reputable polling, here are a few reasonable conclusions to draw.

1. Americans support letting DACA recipients stay.

That latest poll from the Washington Post found that 87 percent of Americans support "a program that allows undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States if they arrived here as a child, completed high school or military service and have not been convicted of a serious crime." An NBC News/Survey Monkey poll released Tuesday likewise found that 66 percent of Americans support "the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) policy, which protects those who were brought into the United States as undocumented children from being deported."

There's a 20-point gap there, but these two results do join months of poll findings showing that find that a majority of Americans support the idea behind DACA, allowing children brought to the U.S. illegally to stay in the U.S.

2. Americans aren't that wild about a "wall." (A different kind of fence, however ...)...

http://www.wfuv.org/content/what-latest-immigration-polls-do-and-dont-say​

 

Or do what Eisenhower did, put massive pressure on the illegal aliens and they'll move themselves back to where they came from or go to Canada.

 

Right. No poll can be believed stating Americans are tired of having illegals crammed down their throats and then being told they're "racists" if they don't swallow.

 

Look at Mexico’s immigration laws, it seems they’re all racists, so why are we letting racists into our country? And have you ever heard the term African-Mexican?

 

More than 4 out of 5 favor DACA

65% of REPUBLICANS favor DACA

 

Your polls are always wrong.
Their polls are always right.
Haven't you learned this by now?

 

Because refusing someone who would assimilate based on the fact the someone else hasn't makes sense in the xenophobic universe somehow.

 

Democrats are always playing the race card over this.
​

It's ridiculous.​

My family lived in Detroit our whole lives, we crossed into
Canada for dinner, river boat gambling, whatever. We all had
driver licenses.

( My parents, aunts, uncles - you know - old people. )


Anyways - the Canadian border guys start hassling us for birth certificates. Seriously.

What did they think we were, the geriatric mob or something ?


Every country has strict immigration laws, but Democrats want
you to believe if America has immigration laws, it's a crime !





Toronto, Canada now has a city wide outdoor smoking ban.

It's crazy.

That's why I'm abandoning Liberal / Progressivism.

They went nuts.

Toronto used to be my favorite town.

Not anymore.





...​

 

I want more immigration... legal immigration. Conversely I want illegals dealt with severely.

 

Exactly! Like the polls predicting the Hillary landslide.

 

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the number of immigrant workers in our workforce once a year. The last one was May 2017.

They estimate there are 27 MILLION legal and illegal immigrants in our workforce. That is 16.9 percent of the ENTIRE workforce.

There's no justification for that many while we were coming out of a sluggish economy.

It hurts the American workers and keeps wages artificially low. That is the reason immigration laws were enacted in the first place, to PROTECT the American workers' wages and jobs.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/forbrn.nr0.htm

Steve

 

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I know what you mean. My favorite towns in Canada were Lethbridge and Calgary. They both were great towns before Canada turned Liberal/Progressive. I do miss the Stampede though.

 

And doesn't Mexico shoot to kill anything that moves on its southern border?

 

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I believe ALL Americans want Legal Immigration and those that come illegally should be sent back where they come from. One million legal immigrants from from around the world is a good number. But they must all be vetted. I know when my brother in law wanted to come to America I had to sign documents that I was responsible for him and when his family followed. Luckily my BL was enterprising a got a job fairly quickly and set up an apartment so his family could come.

 

I wonder what fake tears Schumer is going to do !

 

The post was not about DACA. It's about fixing Immigration. Legal Immigration.
If those so called Dreamers want to stay in America why don't they all serve in the military to speed up their place in line for citizenship. If not let the the supposed 800,000 not 3.6 million get in line after those who have legally applied to come to America and file for American citizenship. BTW, I believe that figure of 65% of Conservative is a load of Progressive Socialist Left Bovine Excrement.

 

Yeah -

We are allowed to inhale smog and exhaust by the ton.


JUST NO CIGARETTES.



AND TAX THE HELL OUT OF CIGS ( FOR 'CHILD PROGRAMS' )



MEANWHILE COKE, PEPSI ROT YOUR TEETH, CAFFEINE CAUSES

HEART ATTACKS, CELL PHONES / TOWERS CAUSE BRAIN CANCER

AND DEADLY CAR CRASHES, BUT NO ONE WANTS TO TAX POP OR

THE TELECOM COMPANIES, AND GAS COMPANIES GET TAX BREAKS.









...​

 

I think if we install a merit system to immigration, people will change their minds. Their concern is that most of the immigrants have little merit and seem to be worth not much more than future democrat votes. We benefit from some excellent immigrants. I think we can take all of those productive ones we can get.

 

Nonsense. There are millions of able bodied Americans, most of them being Democrat, who have no interest in working. If a foreigner wants to come here and put work, why not? Just don't give them public money or citizenship to their crotch fruit.

 

BS! There are 95 million citizens that have dropped out of the workforce. That is equal to the participation levels of the late 1970s. Yes, some have retired, but I would bet that many would reenter the job market again if wages were higher. Wages have stagnated for decades and a big part of it are immigrants competing for the same jobs.

Why is it that you don't want to protect American workers' WAGES AND JOBS?

Steve

 

Labor Force Participation rate chart.

 

I’m sorry bro, but if you’re competing with Mexican immigrants for jobs, then immigration isn't your problem, you are. There's a huge shortage of qualified medical and technical workers in this country, but many of those 95 million Americans you referenced aren't interested in taking the steps to become qualified for those jobs.

I remember reading a story about an illegal girl who graduated college and got an engineering degree. Educated engineers who are American citizens aren't competing against her. They're all enjoying a favorable job market. If you're 40 and all you can do is yard work, change oil, dispose of garbage, or any other job that requires no more than a day of training then it's not illegals who are costing you a good life.