Public Support for Immigration Reform Growing
I missed this finding in the most recent ABC/Washington Post poll, but found it in Ruy Teixeira’s latest public opinion snapshot complete with one of the CAP art team’s excellent charts:
That’s interesting. Conventional wisdom has had it that the recession should make public opinion more hostile to immigrants, but things seem to have moved in the opposite direction. And indeed things should move in a more pro-immigrant, pro-immigration direction since the evidence is pretty overwhelming that openness to immigration boosts economic growth. Then when you think about the use of your marginal federal dollar, consider the possible long-term benefits of investing in better infrastructure or better schools or treating a sick person versus using it on harassing a bunch of people in hopes of inspiring some of them to move back to Mexico.
At any rate, there’s a pretty obvious political upside to providing a path to citizenship for folks living here illegally, so this is something progressive politicians would do well to run some political risks for even if other polling comes in more mixed.
44 Responses to “Public Support for Immigration Reform Growing”
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May 5th, 2009 at 8:38 am
“And meet other requirements” is sort of mysterious. But while the use of that phrase may overstate the percentage of people who support oa Center for American Progress approach to immigration it doesn’t do anything to explain the difference in opinion over time that is the central fact of this post. Interesting.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:44 am
since the evidence is pretty overwhelming that openness to immigration boosts economic growth.
Boosts long-run growth. In the short run, with weak aggregate demand, immigration probably doesn’t have much effect on GDP growth, but is likely to push up the unemployment rate. That being said, illegal immigration is probably very weak right now because a lot of the job losses are in construction, where there are a lot of illegal immigrants.
May 5th, 2009 at 8:59 am
It could be that more people have seen the effects of local immigration crackdowns. When they cracked down in a county NoVa, a lot of abandoned houses and abandoned businesses popped up. Less tax dollars generated and lots of tax dollars wasted on the effort.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:03 am
With all these sudden moves in all sorts of different issue polls, I’m tempted to think the American people have finally accepted that the “progressives” are currently the winning team and they are jumping on the bandwagon.
And then I remember the climate change polls.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Imagine what would happen to those numbers if a popular president with great rhetorical gifts started a high-profile push for immigration reform, and his widely-loathed opposition argued the other side.
Now imagine that said opposition has a history of racially-laden attacks on the president, including accusations related to his citizenship and country of birth.
We could be talking about a six month Macaca Moment.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:28 am
It’s interesting. I’m inclined to think that the shift just reflects the fact that immigration is no longer a hot political topic. If Congress or the President started pushing reform again, I think you’d see a lot of movement back toward opposing partisan camps. Now, since the conservative camp has gotten a lot smaller than it was 18 months ago, you might still wind up with a net gain in support – I just doubt it’d be 61-35.
It could also reflect decreased levels of immigration due to the recession. Or people could feel like immigration enforcement got taken care of two years ago – border security and all that – and so are more receptive to reform. That would, incidentally, validate the enforcement-first contingent that mostly consisted of GOP obstructionists (who probably didn’t actually believe their own rhetoric).
May 5th, 2009 at 9:32 am
At least some of us don’t have a problem with immigration reform, provided it does not contain a guest worker program.
If it does have a guest worker program, the effect on our society that have a slave-class would have would be truly devestating. That’s something you ‘immigration reform at all costs’ types never understood. We don’t oppose immigration, we oppose the fact that you wanted to import cheap labor with no recourse if employers broke the law. We did so because we know that will kill wages, guy the low-end of the job market, and basicaly force every other worker to have to put up with the abuse guest workers would suffer or be fired.
I’d wager these numbers change quite a bit if something is actually proposed.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:36 am
1) Given the miserable conditions in which many Americans live, a true “progressive” would urge that we try to help our fellow citizens –rather than drive them deeper into poverty in order to pander to corporations wanting cheap labor.
2) America is a pie of limited size — we only have so much land, national parks, water, fertile land etc. We are overpopulated already and we should not prate of “green” environmental issues while encouraging enormous environmental degradation with relentless population growth.
3) Every additional immigrant lessens the share of America which each of us should owe as citizens.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Re Matthew’s comment “At any rate, there’s a pretty obvious political upside to providing a path to citizenship for folks living here illegally, so this is something progressive politicians would do well to run some political risks for even if other polling comes in more mixed.”
————-
Behold the REAL nature of the Democratic Leadership: Prate about being for the common man — and then sell the People and the Country down the river at the first opportunity for political gain , power, and the associated money.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:41 am
The graph was two timepoints 15 months apart. A lot of things happened during those 15 months besides a recession. Notably a national election. You can’t attribute the findings to the recession.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:41 am
soullite,
Aren’t the millions of undocumented currently working in the country, under constant threat of arrest and deportation, cut off from public services, and living in the shadows, already a slave-class?
Aren’t they, in fact, in a much worse position than legal guest workers?
Wouldn’t granting them a legal status be a significant step up for them, and serve to mitigate the effects of having such an army of easily-exploited workers on the overall labor market?
May 5th, 2009 at 9:42 am
I believe in America. America has made my fortune. And I raised my daughter in the American fashion.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:52 am
You would think that one of the things a $1 TRILLION/YEAR “Defense” budget would buy us would be defense of our fucking borders.
Of course, so long as you have Democratic leaders like Jane Harman advocating for defense contractors in their districts who piss away $6 BILLION and deliver NOTHING then maybe you have to accept some military setbacks.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:57 am
I have nothing against immigrants who have US citizenship — they are my fellow countrymen and deserve my loyalty and support just as much as the native born.
But the millions of Americans who are in prison because economic conditions drove them there deserve our loyalty as well. The millions of young children who are stuck in shitty educational districts deserve our loyalty as well. It should be the policy of the Democratic Party to provide EVERY US citizen with a Middle Class life — and you can not do that by whoring for the Hispanic Lobby and the corporations wanting a cheap slave class.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:11 am
The slave class was created by the government’s boot on the neck of immigrants, and you want to push that boot down harder.
Don’t lecture us on the well-being of American workers. It’s your America First-style laws that created this threat to them in the first place.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:22 am
I never would have pegged Don as the xenophobic type. Next thing you know he’s going to start clinging to guns and religion. I hear they do that in PA.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:25 am
I hate the phrase “path to citizenship.” The fact is the only reason a “path” is necessary is because we (well — at least nativists like Don Williams) have chosen to plant weeds in the first place. There is nothing normal or natural about a restrictive immigration policy or the massive underclass it necessarily creates.
If we just had an open immigration policy in which every single worker living within our borders was entitled to exactly the same protections, the problem of wage competition would severely diminish (though admittedly not disappear). I realize that there are formal rules attempting to achieve that effect on the books now, but the omnipresent fear of deportation basically kills their enforcement.
This is why I disagree with the guest worker program as well. Guest workers are just institutionalized second class workers. It may be a step up from illegal status in terms of material wealth, but they’re often less free to just walk away from abusive workplace situations.
Immigrants need to be free to unionize, demand compliance with minimum wage laws, to make unemployment and OSHA claims, and to enforce anti-discrimination protection. As long as exercising those rights could get you stripped of virtually all Constitutional protections, thrown in a detainment camp, and permanently banned from the country, you’re going to be a second-class, lower-paid citizen (who incidentally undercuts the wages of native-born Americans).
May 5th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Conservatives are funny. Even among the most libertarian of them, when the question of immigrants come up, they suddenly turn into blood-and-soil collectivists.
Hence, the guy who elevates corporate capitalism to a religion complains about corporations. They guy who wants to abolish the minimum wage starts fretting about “cheap labor” and the effect of wage-undercutting on American workers. The private property mantra goes right out the window, and America is suddenly a pie we all share, with everyone entitled to a share by virtue of their citizenship.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:30 am
NS,
I agree with your observations, but must a guest worker program necessarily deprive workers of their rights?
And what about the rather large body of “immigrants” – a number that would be larger than it is right now but for fears of being caught re-entering – who only want to stay for a limited time, measured in weeks, seasons, or a few years – and then go home?
May 5th, 2009 at 10:37 am
I detest the guest-worker ideas as well– it smacks of something done in countries like Dubai and those other gulf emirates to build the prosperity of the country on the backs of a permanent immigrant underclass. And don’t think that it won’t be used to break the backs of whatever middle class profession that starts to agitate for better pay and better hours.
Our immigration policies are a reflection of what kind of country we want to be– at the moment, it seems that we want to be a country whose economy favors businesses that depend on the cheap and easy availability of menial labor, by looking the other way at mass illegal immigration. Meanwhile, we have a hodge-podge of screwed up systems and a bewildering bureaucracy that people have to learn to exploit in various ways when skilled immigrants want to come into the country to work, all of which get misused in various ways.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Man. AssForAHead must be sleeping in today.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:05 am
joe from Lowell,
I suppose a guest worker program doesn’t necessarily deprive immigrants of those rights. But I’m wary of these programs because they all fundamentally involve the risk of abuse — your whole right to live in this country is entirely contingent on your employer. I suppose you could design a program that effectively counters that, but I haven’t seen any concrete proposals that actually do so.
And, American politics being such a malleable thing, who could say what even a humane guest worker program would look like under the next arch-conservative President? The risk of a permanent minority underclass (like the one Tyro points out in Dubai) is a really scary one. I’m much, much more comfortable with the idea of simply establishing a single set of labor standards and applying them to everyone.
As far as people who want to split residencies, I don’t think that’s a big problem with an open (or more liberalized) immigration system. Plenty of citizens already live part of the year in other countries. They may be subjected to higher tax and regulatory burdens, but I don’t think that’s such a bad thing (especially compared to the shocking results of our current system).
May 5th, 2009 at 11:21 am
1) There are several rhetorical tricks used by those who know they have an indefensible position. One is to misrepresent their opponent as something he is not and to misrepresent his arguments as well.
2) It is a FACT that the United States is extremely rich –both in economic wealth and in natural resources. FAR more so than many other countries. But that wealth is not due to our virtue — we are no different than the people of Rwanda or Darfur. Rather it is because our ancestors invaded a rich, sparsely populated land late in history and exterminated most of the natives.
Those who take that gift for granted should visit the many shitholes on planet Earth and see what our future is if we encourage immigration. They should also realize that the precarious life support systems of over-populated areas like China are only sustained by totalitarian governments in which freedom is lost forever. That also is the future to which some of our allegedly loyal citizens would condemm us.
3) Our civilization is not sustainable — and unless major new energy sources are developed we will be entering a very Darwinian struggle for survival. In which overpopulation will by handled by nature in the customary way — starvation, disease, death. It is only those who –despite expensive educations –are ignorant of the systems which sustain us that fail to recognize that.
4) I am not a “nativist”. I explicitly noted above that I feel immigrant citizens deserve our loyalty as much as the native -born.
But what I am loyal to –above all ethnic, religious, ideological or racial ties — is the United States of America, its land and its people. And anyone who enjoys the privilege of US citizenship should have that same loyalty as well.
5) Unfortunately, decades of fragile prosperity has encouraged the growth of casual treason — of citizens who feel no shame in betraying our People for the sake of some private loyalties — to Israel, to fellow Spanish speakers, to fellow citizens of a foreign country, to some Church or to some ideology.
That is why they can look on the plight of millions of poor, sick and oppressed Americans and feel nothing — while proclaiming themselves “progressives”.
Which is true , in a sense. In that they will lead us progressively deeper into shit.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:29 am
I never would have pegged Don as the xenophobic type.
Don has yet to meet an Us-versus-Them in which he is unwilling to pick a side.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Funny, I was thinking the same thing.
Doesn’t he know someone’s wrong (about CriminalMexicanAliens) on the internet?!
May 5th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
That is why they can look on the plight of millions of poor, sick and oppressed Americans and feel nothing — while proclaiming themselves “progressives”
Can you tell whether a poor, sick, and oppressed person is a US citizen purely by looking at him? Should presumptions commence when you hear him speak a different language?
I can’t speak for every self-proclaimed progressive here, but I’d like to think that there are still a hell of a lot of people in America whose concern for humanity doesn’t end at the point where a border is drawn…and who are deeply disillusioned with the apocalyptic behavior we’ve been taught to accept in the name of loyalty to our “country,” even when they contradict all of the values our country claims to cherish.
The fundamental unsustainability of America’s wealth and privilege makes an excellent case for many sweeping changes – especially in the way we consume resources – but an extremely unconvincing argument against immigration reform. First off, the topic of this discussion applies to people who are already living in America, and who will therefore be a part of the country’s population regardless of their legal status. If you have ten people in the room and only eight are documented, there are still ten people in the room.
Furthermore, to say that America’s wealth is predicated purely on the genocide of the native peoples leaves out the fact that it was also built by successive generations of immigrants and extracted largely from the very countries from which many immigrants come. At no point did this stop being true. And if it’s true that overpopulation is the biggest threat to our survival, then this can only be addressed on a global scale, not just by tinkering with national politics.
Here in Germany, when people make the same arguments as you, we usually just snap their white suspenders, rub their shiny, tiny little heads, and walk away. And this is in a place with a notoriously harsh immigration policy!
May 5th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
This must be why the US, a country made from very high rates of immigration to this day, is such a shithole.
Don pegged himself as a whackjob a long time ago. Post 23 alone is a window into a world of all kinds of crazy. This is normally Lonewacko/Steve Sailer territory.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
It’s hilarious and sad to see people who clearly have no real knowledge of this issue flailing for a clue.
Let me bottom line this for MattY and anyone who can get in touch with congressional staffers: picture in your mind a really sharp trial lawyer who’s familiar with this issue “cross-examining” a Dem politician over this bill.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
It’s hilarious and sad to see people who clearly have no real knowledge of this issue flailing for a clue.
Let me bottom line this for MattY and anyone who can get in touch with congressional staffers: picture in your mind a really sharp trial lawyer who’s familiar with this issue “cross-examining” a Dem politician over this bill. Then, picture how video of that is going to look once it hits Youtube and racks up hundreds of thousands or millions of views.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
At least some of us don’t have a problem with immigration reform, provided it does not contain a guest worker program.
If it does have a guest worker program, the effect on our society that have a slave-class would have would be truly devestating.
Soullite: It depends on what one means by “guest worker.” I agree that a guest worker program with no opportunity for permanent residence is a bad idea. My impression, though, was that, much to Bush’s credit, “guest worker” was simply a more politically palatable way of saying “increase in immigration quotas for Mexicans.” We can debate whether or not or to what extent we ought to increase the quota for our southern neighbor. But what seems beyond dispute is that legal immigration is a lot better for the country than the illegal variety.
My own preference would be for renewable permits for such workers (say, three or four year permits renewable up to three or four times), and then, provided there’s a good record of tax-paying, law adherence, English study — perhaps even a GED requirement — they get a green card. There would also be stringent labor regulations including a “health-insurance-paid-for-by-the-employer” rule. And if a guest worker prefers to avoid the hassle of learning English and getting a GED, and wants to stay with being a temporary workers, that’s fine, too. We seem to forget that, back in the day before it became more difficult to get through the border, a lot of Mexican illegals willingly went home for long periods of time. (and why not? their families were there and the cost of living is a lot cheaper). That’s ultimately what I’d like to see: a more relaxed, normal, to and fro border situation (with lots of opportunities for Gringos, too, to move south for the weather and cheap good life).
May 5th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Re shecky at 27: “This must be why the US, a country made from very high rates of immigration to this day, is such a shithole. ”
————–
Compared to what it was 200 years ago, certainly. Ask the few remaining American Indians what they think of their ancestors Open Door policies.
I take it that you have never been to northern New Jersey.
May 5th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Re AB at 26: “And if it’s true that overpopulation is the biggest threat to our survival, then this can only be addressed on a global scale, not just by tinkering with national politics.”
——————
Well, it can be addressed on a global scale if you’re willing to use nukes.
The last time I checked, this planet still works on the basis of the nation-state. Which means I leave the people of Mexico to work out the problems of Mexico and the people of Germany to work out the problems of Germany.
We here in the USA need to focus on our own problems. So long as 50 MILLION US households have less than $50,000 per year in income, I’m not willing to be all that generous with people who are not my countrymen.
The bullshit about past American immigration is just that — bullshit. The circumstances have greatly changed — the country is full, our population density is too high, and it’s way past time that we shut the door.
To advocate for the profits of corporations based on cheap imported labor –and to do so based on “tradition” — is a very Republican argument.
May 5th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Suddenly, not kicking in people’s doors, handcuffing them, putting them in vans, driving them to detention centers, and expelling them from the country is “generous.”
May 5th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
What Jasper isn’t telling anyone is what happens when his “guests” have U.S. citizen children. We know exactly what the Dems would do. If the Dems got their way, Jasper’s “guests” would be here as long as they wanted. He should just be honest enough to admit that.
May 5th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
It’s hilarious and sad to see Lonewacko, eight-time winner of the Lonewacko Award For Spending His Waking Hours Frothing Against Brown People, facing up to the fact that his campaign of hate has run into a ditch.
May 5th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Who bankrolls Lonewacko?
It’s clear he’s doing this for free as a labor of love. No one in their right might would pay money for that poor quality work he produces.
May 5th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
If you take Don’s position not so much as nativist but misanthropic isolationist — “humanity is a virus with shoes, America is full” — then it’s more coherent.
That doesn’t mean it’s not baseless — seriously, there’s a metric fucktonne of empty space in the US, which is part of the problem, because it gets filled up with sprawling developments of flimsy McMansions.
Tyro’s points are the most useful here. If the immigration system is a reflection of the nation, then the American one, a hodgepodge of badly thought-out, badly implemented, often contradictory and underfunded laws and regulations, is a cracked mirror.
In the meantime, AssForAHead is still telling people to do the jobs that he won’t. Strange, that, given the topic. Still, his increasing deluded imaginings about AskinHardKwestins on YouTube are good for a laugh. I’m sure the Know-Nothings who squawked about drunken, disease-ridden degenerate Irish back in the day thought they were vessels of righteousness too.
May 5th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
What Jasper isn’t telling anyone is what happens when his “guests” have U.S. citizen children. We know exactly what the Dems would do. If the Dems got their way, Jasper’s “guests” would be here as long as they wanted. He should just be honest enough to admit that.
Lonewacko: As my post made clear, I view the only acceptable form of a guest worker plan to be one that provides a path to permanent residency, so whether or not such a worker had American children would be of little import (unlike under the current status quo, which you apparently think is so wonderful). For the record, although I’m a supporter of the current policy/legal interpretation with regard to births on US soil, I would be open to tweaking the regulations with respect to what advantages such births confer on foreign parents. In other words I’m not a big fan of the whole DNA lottery approach to handing out green cards.
May 5th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I remember the good old days of 2006, when he was putting on his war face and roaring that anti-immigrant backlash policies were going to dominate American politics and destroy the Democrats’ chance to capture Congress.
BTW, the reason he fumes so much about the Southern Poverty Law Center is because they reported on racist statements from leaders of the Minutemen. Amusingly enough, its founder quit last year because the movement had been taken over by racists. Who could have seen coming?
May 5th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
1. “joe from Lowell” has absolutely no clue about my positions on various issues and groups.
2. Jasper shouldn’t call it a “guest” program if his “guests” will be here permanently. That whole misleading people thing, you know. I also don’t support the “status quo”, I support backing away from this issue slowly through things such as enforcing our laws, removing incentives, and discrediting far-left and racial power groups.
May 5th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Jasper shouldn’t call it a “guest” program if his “guests” will be here permanently. That whole misleading people thing, you know.
Not all of them would be here “permanently.” Some would no doubt opt to take their earnings home where it’s cheaper to live, or raise a family, or start a business. And at any rate, what I am proposing would require them to proper channels and meet certain conditions in order to have their status (their visa type, that is) changed. ANY type of guest worker or exchange program — including the H1B, J1, and F1 systems — are potentially conduits for permanent immigration, in that some such people will inevitably marry Americans, or else get hired by organizations who wish to sponsor them.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Lonewacko, once more a nominee for the Lonewacko Award in Monomaniacal Clickmongering, talks of “racial power groups” with the blinkers of someone who pretends not to know the identity of his most fervent backers.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Seriously, I do not know why there is such a push for illegal immigrants to just simply become legal! I believe in compassion, but there needs to be compassion on both sides of the field.
On one hand, people are saying that we need compassion for the illegal immigrants that are just hard working people(just rhetoric) and on the other hand we need compassion for the “Citizens” of America that have had family members killed by illegal immigrants because they are criminals or drunk drivers that don’t know or care about the law in the U.S. This is an ongoing problem that needs to be stopped NOW!
Here is a quote from Theodore Roosevelt:
“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language… and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
-Theodore Roosevelt 1907
May 7th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
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