Recent polling suggests tens of millions of Americans are fretting about the situation at the southern border, with immigration vastly trumping traditional kitchen-table topics as the most important problem facing the country today.
Just this week, a Gallup survey showed immigration garnering more concern among Americans than common targets of ire like the economy and the government in general. A day earlier, Monmouth University Poll results showed a majority of those surveyed support building a border wall, marking the first time that threshold was reached since researchers started asking the question in 2015.
But negative immigration-related attitudes – particularly ahead of what’s expected to be a fiercely contested presidential election – can simply be tied to the fact that Americans’ attention is centered on the topic “at this moment,” says Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a political scientist and professor at George Mason University.
Both Sides of the Border
And just because politicians and news outlets are portraying an “immigration spectacle” at the southern border doesn’t mean there’s a tangible crisis impacting the day-to-day lives of Americans, she adds.
“It’s more about the narrative. It’s more about the politics of fear,” Correa-Cabrera says. “It’s perception. So the polls reflect the perception of the public, and not necessarily the reality.”
To be sure, similar polling perceptions on immigration date back further. Last summer, Gallup noted the percentage of respondents who think immigration is a “good thing” had fallen to its lowest level since 2014. The organization also found that only 26% of Americans wanted to see immigration levels increased, while 41% wanted a decrease – the widest gap since 2016.
At the same time, the current political focus that appears to be resonating with a growing number of Americans has pushed President Joe Biden to become more aggressive in his messaging about immigration as it becomes a growing threat to his reelection prospects. A month ago, Biden promised to shut down the border if Congress passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill that was later torpedoed in Congress amid opposition from former President Donald Trump, who has heavily focused on immigration in his campaign and vowed to launch a massive deportation effort if reelected. House Republicans earlier this month also voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, accusing him of willfully failing to handle the migrant crisis on the southern border.
On Thursday, Biden and Trump – each of whom is their party’s likely presidential nominee – were headed to the southern border, with Biden’s visit to Brownsville, Texas, marking his second border visit since taking office. Trump was headed to Eagle Pass, a Texas community that’s served as a flashpoint for GOP governors who’ve accused Biden of failing to do enough to stem border crossings.
“It’s being driven by politicians,” Rachael Cobb, an associate professor and chair of political science and legal studies at Suffolk University, says of the polling trends. “Congress did try to solve it, or rather, attempts were made. Trump then said, ‘You can’t do it. Let’s continue to have this be a problem so that I can talk about it for another nine months.’”
Michael P. McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida who runs the United States Elections Project, adds that because immigration has “been in the news quite a bit,” the public can “suddenly be more aware of the issue.” He referenced a January post of his on social media in which he wrote, tongue-in-cheek, “If it’s an election year the caravans are coming.”
“Much of the campaign is a battle over which issues voters are going to think of most when they make their evaluations of candidates,” McDonald says. “Republicans tend to own the issue of immigration.”
Though the rhetoric around the situation at the U.S. border with Mexico may be debatable, recent data does show that migrants have been trying to enter the country at record levels during Biden’s White House term. U.S. Border Patrol encounters with migrants at the southern border reached nearly 250,000 in December, marking a monthly high before dropping by 50% in January. Annual encounters have ticked past 2 million, far exceeding totals during the Trump administration.
But how much do record numbers at the border really impact people living thousands of miles away? Some governors – such as Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas – have tested that question in recent years by busing migrants to faraway cities such as Chicago, Denver, New York City and Washington, D.C. Cobb, at Suffolk University in Boston, says Massachusetts also has struggled to house migrants who have reached there.
Still, it can be difficult to pinpoint the tangible effects Americans thousands of miles away from the border are experiencing in their everyday lives. And notably, even with last year’s Gallup polling showing a drop in the share of Americans saying immigration is a good thing for the country, a clear majority – 68% – still felt it was.
Another piece of context that can be missing in immigration polling is the influx’s apparently positive impact on the economy. According to The Washington Post, an Economic Policy Institute analysis found that about 50% of the labor market’s strong recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024.
Such details underscore how immigration is a “nuanced” issue, Cobb says. And they likely won’t be reflected in polling results.
“It takes looking at numbers and also understanding how it impacts various sectors,” she notes. “Because it is far easier to scapegoat and have a very simple storyline than it is to consider the policy implications.”
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-02-29/immigration-alarm-perfect-polling-or-the-politics-of-fear
