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Immigration attitudes in Patchwork Nation

James Gimpel

Posted: 10.09.2009 / 10:15 AM PDT

With the House and Senate getting closer to a vote on healthcare reform, President Obama has already lined up another major legislative priority: immigration reform. Historically, the subject of immigration has elicited as much controversy as anything coming out of the current healthcare debate. Furthermore, opposition to immigration tends to peak during economic downturns, when many Americans view newcomers as a threat to their economic security.

A solid majority of Americans believe that immigration should be subject to greater control and restriction. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has queried national samples of respondents about this throughout the past 17 years. The results are in the organization’s recently released “Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2009.”

Specifically, about 80 percent of Americans agree with the sentiment that immigration should be subject to greater control, ranging from a low of 75 percent in 1997 to a high of 82 percent in 1994 and 2002. The 2009 figure was 76 percent. Once we take into account the margin of error in these surveys, there isn’t very much variation in response. Opinions on immigration exhibit remarkable stability over time.

We analyzed these survey results using the Patchwork Nation framework. From community type to community type, we found, Americans have different attitudes toward immigration, but not as different as one might expect. When we combined the various years of surveys, agreement with the above sentiment was at an overall high of 88 percent in agricultural “Tractor Country” communities and 86 percent in socially conservative “Evangelical Epicenters.” The low was 71 percent in big-city “Industrial Metropolis” locales and 72 percent in “Mormon Outposts.” Fifteen to 16 percentage points separate the ends of the spectrum.

The Pew Research Center’s 1987-2009 compilation also includes views on the following statement: The growing number of newcomers from other countries threatens traditional American customs and values.

Nationally, the public is divided on that statement. Fifty-four percent agreed or completely agreed with it in 2009, compared with 52 percent in 2007, 48 percent in 2003, and 53 percent in 2002. These percentages vary by only a few points, indicating that attitudes on this question are stable.

Patchwork Nation’s analysis of the data found that from community type to community type, attitudes also did not change much over time.

Consistently, we find that the locations most suspicious of immigrants are “Tractor Country,” “Evangelical Epicenters,” “Military Bastions,” and “Minority Central” (which have large African-American populations). When the survey results from 2002, 2003, 2007, and 2009 are combined, at least 60 percent of the respondents in each of these community types expressed reservations about the possible changes in American values due to immigration.

By contrast, the areas that were the least fearful of immigration included the “Industrial Metropolis” (46 percent agreed with the statement when the surveys are pooled), the collegiate “Campus and Career” communities (47 percent), the Latino-heavy “Immigration Nation” (48 percent), and the wealthy “Monied ’Burbs” (48 percent).

Both “Mormon Outposts” and the diversifying “Boom Towns” were just about evenly split on this question, with 49 to 50 percent agreement. But the aging “Emptying Nests” and small-town “Service Worker Centers” tilted against immigration, with 57 percent and 59 percent agreement, respectively.

On balance, then, it appears that Mr. Obama has marginal support of big-city constituencies and college towns in a drive for a more expansive and accommodating immigration policy. Yet America’s large suburban population is evenly divided, and in other areas, the support tips decidedly against increased immigration flows.

The stability of views on immigration suggests that many Americans have their minds made up and may not be easily persuaded to go along with a legalization program or other measures that might open the immigration door wider. This portends an uphill climb for Obama in the months to come – one that could make healthcare politics seem easy by compare.