illegal migration research paper

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Research Article

The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States: Estimates based on demographic modeling with data from 1990 to 2016

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Yale School of Management, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States of America, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Yale School of Management, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States of America

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Yale School of Management, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States of America, Yale School of Public Health, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States of America, Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States of America

• Mohammad M. Fazel-Zarandi, 
• Jonathan S. Feinstein, 
• Edward H. Kaplan

• Published: September 21, 2018
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201193
• Reader Comments

We apply standard demographic principles of inflows and outflows to estimate the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States, using the best available data, including some that have only recently become available. Our analysis covers the years 1990 to 2016. We develop an estimate of the number of undocumented immigrants based on parameter values that tend to underestimate undocumented immigrant inflows and overstate outflows; we also show the probability distribution for the number of undocumented immigrants based on simulating our model over parameter value ranges. Our conservative estimate is 16.7 million for 2016, nearly fifty percent higher than the most prominent current estimate of 11.3 million, which is based on survey data and thus different sources and methods. The mean estimate based on our simulation analysis is 22.1 million, essentially double the current widely accepted estimate. Our model predicts a similar trajectory of growth in the number of undocumented immigrants over the years of our analysis, but at a higher level. While our analysis delivers different results, we note that it is based on many assumptions. The most critical of these concern border apprehension rates and voluntary emigration rates of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. These rates are uncertain, especially in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, which is when—both based on our modeling and the very different survey data approach—the number of undocumented immigrants increases most significantly. Our results, while based on a number of assumptions and uncertainties, could help frame debates about policies whose consequences depend on the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Citation: Fazel-Zarandi MM, Feinstein JS, Kaplan EH (2018) The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States: Estimates based on demographic modeling with data from 1990 to 2016. PLoS ONE 13(9): e0201193. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201193

Editor: Jeremy D. Goldhaber-Fiebert, Stanford University, UNITED STATES

Received: October 2, 2017; Accepted: July 10, 2018; Published: September 21, 2018

Copyright: © 2018 Fazel-Zarandi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper, its Supporting Information file, and accompanying Excel spreadsheet.

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Immigration policy remains a hotly debated issue in the United States, with perhaps no aspect more controversial than how to address undocumented immigrants who do not have legal status. Policy debates about the amount of resources to devote to this issue, and the merits of alternative policies, including deportation, amnesty, and border control, depend critically on estimates of the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., which sets the scale of the issue. The most widely accepted estimate of this number currently is approximately 11.3 million [ 1 , 2 ]. This estimate is based on variants of the residual method [ 2 – 4 ]. In this method, the size of the unauthorized immigrant population residing in the United States is set equal to the estimate of the total foreign-born population minus the legally resident foreign-born population. The total foreign-born population estimate is derived from surveys that ask respondents whether they were born outside of the United States (and whether they are American citizens), specifically either the American Community Survey or the Current Population Survey. The legally resident foreign-born population is estimated using administrative data on legal admissions.

An alternative approach to estimating the size of the undocumented population follows directly from basic demographic principles. Starting from a known population size at a given date, the population size at a future date equals the starting value plus the cumulative inflows minus the cumulative outflows. We employ this approach to estimate the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. for each year from 1990 to 2016, using the best available data and parameter values from the academic literature and government sources. Some of the information we use has been collected and made available only recently, so our approach is timely.

Our analysis has two main outputs. First, we generate what we call our conservative estimate, using parameter values that intentionally underestimate population inflows and overestimate population outflows, leading to estimates that will tend to underestimate the number of undocumented immigrants. Our conservative estimate for 2016 is 16.7 million, well above the estimate that is most widely accepted at present, which is for 2015 but should be comparable. Our model as well as most work in the literature indicates that the population size has been relatively stable since 2008; thus 2015 and 2016 are quite comparable. For our second step, recognizing that there is significant uncertainty about population flows, we simulate our model over a wide range of values for key parameters. These parameter values range from very conservative estimates to standard values in the literature. We sample values for each key parameter from uniform distributions over the ranges we establish. In our simulations, we also include Poisson population uncertainty conditional on parameter values, thus addressing the inherent variability in population flows. Our simulation results produce probability distributions over the number of undocumented immigrants for each year from 1990 to 2016. The results demonstrate that our conservative estimate falls towards the bottom of the probability distribution, at approximately the 2.5th percentile. The mean of the 2016 distribution is 22.1 million, which we take as the best overall estimate of the number of undocumented immigrants based on our modeling approach and current data. We also show the variability in our model based on the simulations for each year from 1990 through 2016.

The model works as follows (mathematical formulation, parameter values, and data sources underlying this model are detailed in the Supporting Information). For our conservative estimate we begin with a starting 1990 population of 3.5 million undocumented immigrants, in agreement with the standard estimate [ 1 ]. The estimate of 3.5 million undocumented immigrants in 1990 is based on applying the residual method (using the 1980 and 1990 censuses), described previously, which we argue systematically underestimates the population. Thus in assuming an initial population of 3.5 million, and centering our simulations around this value, we are almost certainly underestimating the size of the undocumented immigrant population at this date. In the simulations we assume that the starting population is drawn from a Poisson distribution with a mean of 3.5 million. It then follows that the population size at a future date equals the starting value plus the cumulative inflows minus the cumulative outflows.

Population inflows

Population inflows are decomposed into two streams: (I) undocumented immigrants who initially entered the country legally but have overstayed their visas; and (II) immigrants who have illegally crossed the border without being apprehended. We describe our approach for each source, explain the basis for our assumptions and why they are conservative, and list parameter ranges for the simulation.

(I) Visa overstays are estimated using Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data for 2016, the first year for which visa overstays were comprehensively measured [ 5 ]. To apply this data in our context we also gather data for non-immigrant visas issued for all years from 1990 [ 6 ]. For our conservative estimate we assume that for each year the rate of overstays was equal to the 2016 rate. Calibration of our model shows that this assumption is in fact quite conservative. In particular, approximately 41% of undocumented immigrants based on the current survey data approach are visa overstayers [ 7 ], which translates to a visa overstay population of 4.6 million in 2015. Our model however predicts the number of overstayers to be less than this (even though our overall estimate of the number of undocumented immigrants is higher). That is, in our model most undocumented immigrants are not overstayers, and the model produces an estimate of the number of overstayers below the estimate produced in the conventional approach based on survey data. We compute that we would need to set the visa overstay rate above the DHS 2016 rate, specifically 1.1 times that rate, for our conservative estimate to generate as many overstayers as the 4.6 million in the 11.3 million estimate. Since many overstayers leave or adjust their status within a few months of their visa expiration date, we make a further conservative adjustment and count as overstayers only those individuals who have overstayed more than 1 year. For the simulation, we set the visa overstay rate equal to the 2016 rate multiplied by a uniform draw from the range [0.5,1.5]; consistent with the discussion above, this is a relatively conservative range.

(II) Illegal Border Crossers: We estimate illegal border crossers through application of the standard repeated trials (capture-recapture) model [ 8 – 10 ]. The model requires as inputs statistics on the total number of border apprehensions, the number of individuals apprehended more than once in a year (recidivist apprehensions), and estimates of the deterrence rate—the fraction of individuals who give up after being apprehended and do not attempt another crossing. Given these inputs, the repeated trials model generates estimates of: (i) the apprehension rate—the probability an individual is caught trying to cross the border; and (ii) the total number of individuals who are not apprehended (they may be caught one or more times but cross successfully on a later attempt) and enter the interior of the country illegally—the number of illegal border crossers in a year. We discuss data sources and potential weaknesses of this approach here; more information and mathematical details are provided in the Supporting Information.

DHS [ 10 , 11 ] provide figures for the total number of border apprehensions for every year in our timespan. They also provide information on the number of recidivist apprehensions and estimates of the deterrence rate for every year from 2005. Based on these figures and estimates they provide an estimate of the apprehension rate for each year from 2005 to 2015. Their estimate is 35% for 2005 and increases steadily, to above 50% by the end of the sample period. From their estimates we are able to derive directly estimates of the number of illegal border crossers for each of these years. For earlier years (1990 to 2004) we must make further assumptions. Our assumptions are about the apprehension and deterrence rates, since these have been addressed in the literature; in turn we are able to generate estimates of the number of illegal border crossers in earlier years based on these assumptions (see the Supporting Information for analytic details).

Most experts agree that the apprehension rate was significantly lower in earlier years [ 12 , 13 ]. A recent study [ 12 ] using data from the Mexican Migration Project estimates this rate for every year from 1990 to 2010; estimates in the 1990’s begin from the low twenties and range upwards to approximately 30%. A second study estimates the rate for 2003 at around 20% [ 13 ]. Given these estimates, and the general view that apprehension rates have risen, for our conservative estimate we assume that the apprehension rate in years 1990-2004 was equal to the average rate in years 2005-10 or 39%; this is well above the rates discussed in the literature for earlier years and thus tends to reduce our estimate of the number of undocumented immigrants since it implies a larger fraction are apprehended at the border. For our simulation we assume a uniform distribution over the range [0.25,0.40] for the earlier years, still above the average rates in the literature for these years.

Additional facts support the view that the apprehension rate has increased in recent years. The number of border agents has increased dramatically over the timespan of our analysis [ 14 ], and the number of hours spent by border agents patrolling the immediate border area has increased by more than 300% between 1992- 2004 [ 15 ]. Further, new infrastructure (e.g., fences) and technologies (e.g., night vision equipment, sensors, and video imaging systems) were also introduced during this period [ 15 ]. Thus the apprehension rate we use for earlier years almost certainly overstates the actual apprehension rate and therefore underestimates the number of successful crossings. However, we note that these additional border resources may have been concentrated in certain locations and it remains a possibility that apprehension rates were higher in earlier years. We note finally that in using data only on Southern Border crossings we again are conservative in our approach, not accounting for illegal crossings along other borders.

Notwithstanding our view that we make conservative choices in setting up our model and parameter values, we acknowledge that border apprehension rates for the 1990’s are not based on as well-developed data sources as estimates for more recent years. Thus it remains a possibility that these rates are higher than we believe. One aspect of this uncertainty concerns deterrence. When deterrence is higher border crossings will fall. Most researchers believe deterrence has increased in recent years [ 8 , 12 ]. We note that reference [ 12 ] estimates that the probability of eventual entry after multiple attempts on a single trip in the 1990s is close to one, indicating almost no deterrence in the earlier period. One piece of evidence in support of this is data on the voluntary return rate, which refers to the percentage of individuals apprehended at the border who are released back to their home country without going through formal removal proceedings and not being subjected to further penalties. Voluntary returns are thus not “punished” and thus are less likely to be deterred from trying to cross the border in the future, compared with individuals who are subjected to stronger penalties. The voluntary return rate has fallen in recent years, from 98% between 2000 and 2004 to 84% between 2005 and 2010. Thus, at least based on this measure deterrence efforts have increased. However, this does not conclusively demonstrate that deterrence was lower in earlier years and it remains a possibility that it was higher, which would tend to reduce our estimates of the number of undocumented immigrants. In conclusion we note that although there is much uncertainty about the border apprehension rate, it would have to be very high, above 60% for earlier years, in order to generate estimates of the 2015 population of undocumented immigrants in the range of the current widely accepted estimate of just over 11 million (this is based on analyzing our model using the conservative estimate values for all other parameters). This seems implausible based on our reading of the literature.

Population outflows

Population outflows are broken into four categories: (I) voluntary emigration; (II) mortality; (III) deportation; and (IV) change of status from unauthorized to lawful.

(I) Voluntary emigration rates are the largest source of outflow and the most uncertain based on limited data availability. It is well accepted that voluntary emigration rates decline sharply with time spent in the country [ 16 ]; thus we employ separate emigration rates for those who have spent one year or less in the U.S., 2-10 years, or longer. We use the following values for our conservative estimate. First, for those who have spent one year or less we assume a voluntary emigration rate of 40%. This estimate is based on data for the first-year visa overstay exit rate (the fraction of overstayers who left the country within one year from the day their visa expired) for 2016 [ 17 ], which is in the lower thirty percent range (the rate for 2015 is similar). We note that the rate for visa overstayers is very likely a substantial overestimate for illegal border crossers, who are widely viewed as having a lower likelihood of exiting in the first year, especially in more recent years [ 12 ]. The 40% first-year emigration rate that we assume is well above the standard values in the literature [ 4 , 12 , 16 , 18 ], which range from 1% to 25%. Hence this assumption contributes to making our estimate of the number of undocumented immigrants in the country a conservative one. For years 2-10 we assume a rate of 4% per year. This is the upper bound among estimates in the literature, which lie between 0.01 to 0.04 [ 4 , 16 , 18 ]. Lastly, for years 10 and above, published estimates of the emigration rate typically fall around 1%; we set this rate to 1% per year in line with these estimates. Note that given the extremely high 40% emigration rate that we assume for those who have only been in the country for one year or less, overall annual emigration rates in our model simulation are significantly higher than those found in the literature or government sources. To further enhance the conservatism of our model, we assume that all undocumented immigrants present at the beginning of 1990 have been here for only one year.

For our simulation analysis we divide first-year voluntary emigration into two categories, visa overstayers and illegal border crossers. For visa overstayers we assume the first-year rate falls in the range [.25,.50] (uniform) for each year; based on the discussion in the preceding paragraph and literature cited there, this is a relatively conservative range with midpoint 37.5% above nearly all accepted estimates. For illegal border crossers there is data indicating that first-year voluntary emigration rates vary across cohorts [ 12 ] (we are not aware of such data for visa overstayers). To incorporate this, we assume that a voluntary emigration rate is drawn for each cohort year from a uniform distribution that is specific to that cohort’s year of initial entry; the lower bound of this range is set by the numbers in [ 12 ] and the upper bound is set at 0.50. Again our assumptions here are conservative, since we use an accepted value in the literature as our lower bound and allow emigration rates to range to very high values. For years 2-10 and 10 and above we use the same distributions for overstayers and illegal border crossers. For years 2-10 we draw a value from the range [.01, .05], for which the mean value of 3% is relatively high and thus conservative; and for years 10 and above we draw a value from the range [.005,.02], thus centered slightly above the standard value in the literature. We note that the first-year rate is the most critical for our analysis.

An important issue is circular flow of migrants, which refers to individuals who enter the country, then exit temporarily and re-enter a short time later. There is limited numerical data for circular flow rates. However, it is logical and recognized in the literature [ 12 ] that when border apprehension rates are higher circular flow rates for border crossers tend to diminish: Given it will be more difficult to re-enter the country successfully later, illegal border crossers in the country will tend not to leave for temporary reasons. Thus this issue is important for illegal border crossers (but not likely to be as relevant for visa overstayers). Thus in our simulation we impose a negative correlation between the first-year emigration rate and the border apprehension rate for illegal border crossers; based on our own analysis for annual data from the best recent study [ 12 ] we use a correlation of -0.5 (see the Supporting Information for details). We note that this correlation does not substantially change the range or mean of our simulation results, but does reduce the variance.

(II) The mortality rate applied is the age-adjusted mortality rate reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [ 19 ]. For our conservative estimate we set this value at 0.7 percent, and for the simulation we draw a value from the range [0.5,1.0] percent. We view these values as conservative. Experts in the field argue that this rate overestimates mortality among undocumented immigrants [ 4 ]. To further check that our mortality rate assumptions are an overestimate and thus contribute to making our overall estimate of the number of undocumented immigrants conservative, we combined the age, gender, and country of birth distributions of undocumented immigrants reported in [ 2 , 20 ] with CDC mortality rates [ 19 ]. The resulting mortality rate is much lower than the mortality rate we assume (see the Supporting Information for details). We note that the mortality rate is low relative to the voluntary emigration rate, and thus a less important parameter for the calculation we make.

Lastly, (III) the annual number of deportations is taken directly from DHS annual statistics [ 11 , 21 ] for each year. (IV) The number of undocumented immigrants who change to legal status in each year is also taken directly from published data [ 4 , 11 ]. We include the number of deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA) recipients as population outflows even though such individuals remain technically undocumented, which again serves to underestimate the size of the population.

Simulation methodology

Our simulation is designed to evaluate the range of outcomes the model produces, thus taking into account important sources of variability. There are two main sources of uncertainty: parameter uncertainty, and inherent population variability conditional upon a set of parameter values. We take both sources into account, but note that the first source is the main factor contributing to the variability of the population distribution in the model.

We address parameter uncertainty by establishing ranges for key parameters. As documented above, these key parameters are (i) the visa overstay rate; (ii) the border apprehension rate for individuals attempting to cross the border illegally; (iii) the voluntary emigration rate, which is set separately for illegal border crossers and visa overstayers for the first year and then jointly for years 2-10 and years 10 and above, and for which we establish a cohort-specific range for each annual cohort for the first-year rate for illegal border crossers; and (iv) the mortality rate. For each parameter, we establish a uniform distribution over the set range (and impose a negative correlation between the border apprehension rate and first-year voluntary emigration rate for illegal border crossers). Then, in each simulation run we sample a value for each parameter from its underlying distribution. All of the ranges for the parameter distributions have been specified in the preceding sections. We also sample a value for the initial population of undocumented immigrants in 1990 from a Poisson distribution with a mean of 3.5 million, the most widely accepted estimate of the population of undocumented immigrants as of that date. See the Supporting Information for further details.

To model inherent population uncertainty given a set of parameter values, we impose a Poisson structure on our model. Specifically, the population in a particular year, conditional on a set of parameter values, is represented as the sum of all individuals who have entered the country in previous years and have remained in the country from their year of arrival until the particular year in question. The number of entries (in Poisson terminology, arrivals) in any year is drawn from a Poisson distribution with mean dependent upon the underlying parameter values governing apprehension probabilities and visa overstays for that year, while the probability that a new immigrant remains in the country from entry until the particular year in question is determined based on the parameters governing voluntary emigration, mortality, deportation and change-of-status rates. It follows (see the Supporting Information for mathematical details) that the number of individuals who enter the country in any given year and are still in the country at some future date will also follow a Poisson distribution. Further, the number of individuals who enter in any given year and remain in the country at a future time can be considered to be statistically independent given the underlying parameter values (see the Supporting Information for details). Thus, the population of undocumented immigrants in a particular year, which is the sum of those who have entered in past years and are still in the country in the particular year in question, also follows a Poisson distribution, for the sum of independent Poisson random variables is itself Poisson distributed.

We ran 1,000,000 trials simulating the model. For each trial we recorded the total number of undocumented immigrants predicted to be in the U.S. in each year from 1990 through 2016 for that trial.

Following suggestions made by the Academic Editor based on comments made by a reviewer, we performed an additional set of simulations making even more conservative assumptions about net inflows over the period 1990-98. This is the period for which there is significant uncertainty about net inflows of undocumented immigrants. Specifically, we calibrated the model such that the net inflows are half a million per year over this period (in line with the residual method’s estimates during this period) and computed the pooled number of undocumented immigrants at the end of 1998 based on this approach. We then simulated our model forward from that point using the same framework described above.

Fig 1 depicts our results for year 2016, the most recent year for which we are able to produce an estimate. The graph depicts the relative frequency of the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.; it is a smoothed version of the histogram we generate based on simulating our model 1,000,000 times. The figure also shows our conservative estimate of 16.7 million in Red, and the most widely accepted estimate heretofore of 11.3 million in Blue on the far left. We note that this last estimate is for 2015, but should be comparable since both the estimates based on the survey approach and our modeling approach indicate that the number of undocumented immigrants has remained relatively constant in recent years. Finally, the mean estimate of 22.1 million is shown in black in the center of the distribution. It is clear from the Figure that based on the data we use, our assumptions, and our demographic model, the currently accepted estimate falls outside the range of likely values. And our conservative estimate is indeed conservative based on our modeling approach and parameter ranges, lying at approximately the 2.5th percentile of the probability distribution.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201193.g001

Fig 2 displays our simulation results for each year from 1990 through 2016. Our conservative estimate of the number of undocumented immigrants for each year is shown in Red, the most widely accepted estimate (through 2015) is shown in Blue, and the mean value we estimate for each year is shown in Black. The results show that our model estimates follow a similar shaped trajectory as the widely accepted current estimates do, but grow faster and are well above those estimates for every year.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201193.g002

The results of our analysis are clear: The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States is estimated to be substantially larger than has been appreciated at least in widely accepted previous estimates. Even an estimate based on what we view as conservative assumptions, in some cases unrealistically so, generates an estimate of 16.7 million, well above the conventional estimate of 11.3 million. The mean of our simulations, which range over more standard but still conservative parameter values, is 22.1 million, essentially twice the current widely accepted estimate; the ninety-five percent probability interval is [16.2,29.5].

Even for the scenario presuming net inflows of 0.5 million per year for 1990-98 our results still exceed the current estimates substantially. The mean estimate is 17.0 million with a 95% probability interval of 13.5 million to 21.1 million. The conservative estimate for this scenario is 14.0 million, still significantly above the widely accepted estimate of 11.3 million.

It is currently fairly widely accepted that there are approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. This estimate, derived from population surveys and legal immigration records, has formed the backdrop for the immigration policy debate in the United States. Using a different approach grounded in operational data, and demographic and mathematical modeling, we have arrived at higher estimates of the undocumented immigrant population.

A possible explanation for the discrepancy in these results is that the survey-based approach taken in [ 2 – 4 ] must surmount two challenges. First, it requires reaching a representative sample of all those born outside of the United States. Second, it requires accurate responses from survey respondents when asked where they were born, and whether they are American citizens. It is plausible that undocumented immigrants are more difficult to locate (and survey) than other foreign-born residents of the United States, and if contacted, undocumented immigrants might misreport their country of origin, citizenship, and/or number of household residents fearing the possible consequences of revealing their true status. Any of these circumstances would lead to underestimating the true number of undocumented immigrants.

Our approach, summarized above and detailed in the Supporting Information, is grounded in fundamental principles of demographic flows. The size of any population can be represented as its initial value plus cumulative inflows minus cumulative outflows. We have specialized this approach to the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States, and have drawn upon previously unavailable data. From border apprehensions and visa overstays, it is possible to infer the number of new undocumented arrivals by reversing the flow: how many new arrivals are necessary in order to see the number of apprehensions and visa overstayers observed? Similarly, consideration of deportations, voluntary emigration, mortality and change-of-status enables one to infer the duration of stay in the country from the time of arrival. Together, this logic enables reconstructing the arrival and departure processes governing population inflows and outflows that result in the population of undocumented immigrants in the country.

In developing estimates we have attempted to utilize parameter values that understate inflows and overstate outflows. Our results are most sensitive to the assumptions we make about the probability of border apprehension and the voluntary emigration rates of undocumented immigrants leaving the United States. Further research could explore in greater detail the impact of assumptions about these parameters on estimates of the number of undocumented immigrants. To explore the uncertainty of our estimates we have conducted extension simulations over parameters, simulating 1 million different population trajectories; further research could widen the ranges of parameters and consider additional parameter uncertainty. Further research could also analyze inflows and outflows based on country of origin.

Our results lead us to the conclusion that the widely accepted estimate of 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in the United States is too small. Our model estimates indicate that the true number is likely to be larger, with an estimated ninety-five percent probability interval ranging from 16.2 to 29.5 million undocumented immigrants.

Supporting information

S1 file. supporting material..

Contains the mathematical model, parameter values, and data sources underlying the model.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201193.s001

S2 File. Excel file.

The spreadsheet used to calculate the conservative estimate.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201193.s002

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• Original article
• Open access
• Published: 27 September 2017

Illegal immigration and media exposure: evidence on individual attitudes

• Giovanni Facchini 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 8 ,
• Anna Maria Mayda   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0094-2586 3 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 &
• Riccardo Puglisi 6 , 9  

IZA Journal of Development and Migration volume  7 , Article number:  14 ( 2017 ) Cite this article

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Illegal immigration has been the focus of much debate in receiving countries, but little is known about the drivers of individual attitudes towards illegal immigrants. To study this question, we use the CCES survey, which was carried out in 2006 in the USA. We find evidence that—in addition to standard labor market and welfare state considerations—media exposure is significantly correlated with public opinion on illegal immigration. Controlling for education, income, ideology, and other socio-demographic characteristics, individuals watching Fox News are 9 percentage points more likely than CBS viewers to oppose the legalization of undocumented immigrants. We find an effect of the same size and direction for CNN viewers, whereas individuals watching PBS are instead more likely to support legalization. Ideological self-selection into different news programs plays an important role, but cannot entirely explain the correlation between media exposure and attitudes about illegal immigration.

1 Introduction

Immigration is one of the most salient policy issues in the USA. Gallup polls conducted in May 2006 and May 2007 show that immigration was considered the second most important problem facing the country, with, respectively, 13 and 24% of respondents mentioning it. As the number of undocumented immigrants has increased ( Passel 2005 ), much of the recent discussion has focused on illegal immigration. While a small literature is emerging which tries to measure the costs and benefits of illegal immigration ( Hanson 2006 ), little is known on the factors that influence individual attitudes towards this facet of globalization. The purpose of this paper is to carry out what, to the best of our knowledge, is the first national-level systematic study of the determinants of public opinion on illegal immigration and, in particular, of the role played by the media in shaping these attitudes. 1

To undertake our analysis, we use the newly released Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), 2 an individual-level survey conducted immediately before and after the 2006 midterm elections. At that time, two legislative initiatives on illegal immigration were being considered in the US Congress. The bill discussed in the House (H.R. 4437) focused on border enforcement and deportation of illegal immigrants. The Senate proposal (S. 2611) contained instead a more complex set of initiatives. Besides calling for increased security, it expanded the number of guest workers and, importantly, it introduced a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants.

The CCES contains two questions which are particularly suited for the purpose of our study. The first one asks each respondent to state whether he/she would have voted for the Senate plan. The second one, which was asked only to a subsample of the population, directly compares the House and the Senate proposal. We use answers to these questions to assess the views of each respondent on illegal immigration. In analyzing the drivers of individual attitudes, we focus on the role played by the media, while controlling for the other standard economic and noneconomic drivers which have been highlighted in the literature. The CCES is unique for our purpose as, besides providing a wealth of information on the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, it also contains information on the TV evening news program they most frequently watch (ABC World News, CBS Evening News, CNN, Fox News, PBS The NewsHour, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, and others). To investigate the role played by the actual content of the newscast, we have supplemented this information with content coverage data obtained from the Dow Jones Factiva online archive.

To carry out our empirical analysis, we estimate a series of probit regressions. In our main specification, the dependent variable is a pro-Senate plan dummy, which is constructed from answers to the first policy question described above. Controlling for other economic and noneconomic drivers, we find that media exposure plays an important role in shaping public opinion on illegal immigration. According to our estimates, respondents watching Fox News are 9 percentage points more likely to oppose the lenient Senate plan (relative to CBS viewers). This result is broadly consistent with the findings of recent studies on the political position and the persuasive role of Fox News ( Groseclose and Milyo 2005 ; DellaVigna and Kaplan 2007 ). Perhaps surprisingly, we find that CNN viewers entertain an attitude towards illegal immigration which is very similar to the one displayed by Fox News viewers. This result might be explained by a “Lou Dobbs” effect. 3 Instead, the opposite effect holds for PBS viewers, who are 14 percentage points more likely, relative to CBS viewers, to support the Senate plan. It is important to notice that ideological self-selection into different news channels plays a relevant role, but does not completely explain the correlation between media exposure and policy attitudes on illegal immigration. In fact, when controlling for self-reported ideology and party identification, the estimated effect for Fox News and PBS is significantly smaller in absolute value than when not controlling for these variables but still large and highly significant. 4 In addition, and most importantly, the estimated effect for CNN is larger in absolute value when controlling for self-reported ideology and party identification. This means that, in the case of CNN, the impact of the news program works in the opposite direction with respect to self-selection, and thus, the coefficient on CNN is if anything biased towards zero due to self-selection. These results give us confidence that our correlations are at least in part driven by the causal impact of media exposure. In addition, we also find that the count of stories covering migration in a given evening news program has a negative and significant impact on the propensity to support the Senate plan: this result is also unlikely to be driven by self-selection since the number of stories covering migration should not be a decisive factor in the choice of the evening news program watched.

When forming their opinion about a certain issue, individuals are also influenced by the real-world events pertaining to that issue ( Behr and Iyengar 1985 ). Our findings are consistent with this framework: controlling for media coverage and other confounding factors—e.g., the state-level fraction of legal immigrants—individuals living in states with a larger fraction of illegal immigrants are significantly more favorable to the Senate plan. The estimated correlation is quantitatively significant: an additional 1 percentage point in the fraction of illegal immigrants is associated with a 1 percentage point increase in the propensity to support the Senate plan.

We also find that economic drivers play an important role. In particular, individuals are more favorable to the Senate’s “more lenient” plan if they are more skilled and richer. To better interpret these results, we also run the same regressions using—as the dependent variable—the dummy constructed from answers to the second policy question, which explicitly asks respondents to compare the Senate and the House plan. Our findings in the two sets of specifications are very similar. This suggests that—when answering the question about the Senate plan—respondents have in mind the House plan as the alternative.

Our result that more skilled individuals are more favorable to the Senate plan is in line with the existing literature on the drivers of attitudes towards overall migration. Compared to the House plan, the Senate plan increases the labor market competition faced by unskilled workers, both by being more lenient on deportations as well as by legalizing illegal workers, thus broadening their employability across sectors. Since illegal immigrants are mostly unskilled, both these effects increase the relative supply of unskilled labor. 5 The positive impact of individual skill is then consistent with the existence of labor market complementarities between skilled and unskilled labor, which have been shown to be important drivers of attitudes by Scheve and Slaughter (2001) , Mayda (2006) , O’Rourke and Sinnott (2006 ), and Ortega and Polavieja (2012) . 6

Our findings suggest also that the welfare state plays an important role in shaping attitudes towards legalization as richer individuals are more likely to support the Senate plan. A plausible explanation of this result is that both poor and rich individuals feel penalized by the Senate plan through the welfare state channel—since they perceive legalization as worsening the position of public finances. However, the poor are more affected than the rich, because they expect benefits to fall, either in quantity or quality, and they use public services relatively more than the rich.

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. In Section 2 , we review the related literature, while in Section 3 , we provide some background information about illegal immigration in the USA and the two legislative proposals discussed by the US Congress during 2006. In Section 4 , we describe the data. The results of our statistical analysis are discussed in Section 5 , while Section 6 is devoted to a series of robustness checks. Section 7 concludes.

2 Related literature

This paper is related to two strands of the literature. The first looks at the impact of the media on policy preferences, whereas the second considers the various drivers of individual attitudes towards immigration.

A vast body of literature, both in economics and political science, has studied how the media can shape policy preferences. In particular, political science and communication scholars have highlighted three main channels. First, several studies have focused on the agenda-setting power of the media, according to which the amount of coverage devoted to a particular issue can influence the importance readers and/or viewers attach to it ( McCombs and Shaw 1972 ). 7 Second, as noted by McCombs (2002) , the media not only can make an issue more salient by increasing coverage but it can also emphasize particular attributes of the issue itself. The theory of priming thus describes how readers and viewers, when assessing a situation or individual, are pushed towards giving a larger weight to the aspect emphasized by the media. 8 Similarly, framing refers to how the media can associate an issue to another, in order to affect an individual’s perception. 9

Turning to the economics literature, recent analyses—taking as given and known the ideological position of a media outlet—have tried to measure the media’s persuasion effect by exploiting experimental or quasi-experimental settings on the degree to which individuals are exposed to that outlet. 10 For instance, DellaVigna and Kaplan (2007) find that the gradual introduction of Fox News in cable markets has increased the Republican vote share in presidential elections between 1996 and 2000. Using an experimental setting, Gerber et al. (2008) do not find instead any significantly different effect of exposure to the Washington Times vs. the Washington Post on the Democratic vote in the 2005 Virginia gubernatorial elections. 11

Moving from the general impact of the media to the impact on preferences—specifically on a given policy—exposure to different media sources might affect individual support by altering the balance between “considerations” that are favorable and/or unfavorable to that policy ( Zaller 1992 ). As far as attitudes towards immigration are concerned, the agenda-setting power of the media can influence them through two different channels. First, individuals might hold views on the phenomenon, which are “activated” only when migration is made salient by media coverage. Second, the timing of the coverage might matter. An ideologically biased media could strategically devote more attention to migration only in the presence of “bad” events related to it, and disregard it in the presence of “good” events, to highlight the foreigners’ negative impact on the community. 12 Third, priming and framing choices by the media might exert a direct effect on attitudes. 13 A media outlet can decide to systematically frame the immigration issue in a negative or positive fashion, thus affecting the point of view entertained by their audience and ultimately their feelings about the issue. This mechanism could work independently of the overall amount of coverage.

Two recent papers explicitly investigate the link between media exposure and migration attitudes. Abrajano and Singh (2009) focus on Spanish-speaking individuals in the USA and show—in a cross-sectional exercise—that those watching Spanish-language channels display more positive attitudes on migration than those watching English-language ones. De Philippis (2009 ) matches instead individual-level data from the European Social Survey with country-level data on media coverage of immigration from the Dow Jones Factiva. She finds that—controlling for economic and cultural drivers—individuals are significantly less favorable to immigration when media outlets in their country more frequently portray immigration within a controversial frame.

Besides media exposure, several studies have emphasized the role of other drivers of preferences towards immigration, both economic and noneconomic ones. Particular emphasis has been put on the importance of labor market competition and of the redistribution carried out by the welfare state in shaping preferences. Concerning the former, Scheve and Slaughter (2001) and Kessler (2001) find that, in the USA, more educated individuals are more likely to be pro-immigration, a result which is consistent with the evidence that immigrants to that country are on average less skilled than natives. 14 Similar results have also been obtained by Mayda (2006) and O’Rourke and Sinnott (2006 ) for a set of developed and developing countries, using the variation in the relative skill distribution of migrants to natives across countries. Immigration-receiving countries are often characterized by large welfare states, and the impact of immigration on individual preferences through this channel has been studied by several papers. For instance, Hanson et al. (2007) , Facchini and Mayda (2009) , and Dustmann and Preston (2007) find strong evidence that welfare state considerations matter in shaping attitudes on overall immigration—using variation in the extent of redistribution carried out across US states as well as across advanced Western economies.

Immigration attitudes are also influenced by noneconomic, cultural factors. Hainmueller and Hiscox (2007) and Hainmueller and Hiscox (2010) have emphasized that more educated immigrants might be more pro-migration because they are more open towards different cultures, more cosmopolitan, and more tolerant, and not just because they fear less competition in the labor market from unskilled immigrants. Furthermore, as pointed out by Dustmann and Preston (2007) , “differences” between the immigrant and the native population might induce a more negative appraisal of immigration, to the extent that natives fear a dilution of nation-specific characteristics and/or have a preference for cultural (and ethnic) homogeneity. In particular, the results for Great Britain obtained by Dustmann and Preston (2007) suggest that racist feelings have a particularly strong effect on attitudes towards overall migration. More generally, Card et al. (2012) consider the relative role of economic factors and “compositional amenities”—i.e., a broad class of externalities arising from the fact that people value the characteristics of their neighbors and co-workers, which are fundamentally changed by immigration. Importantly, they find that both dimensions play a significant role but that compositional amenities explain 3–5 times more of the individual variation in attitudes towards immigration.

Summing up, a substantial literature has investigated the drivers of public opinion on overall immigration. At the same time, little is known on what shapes attitudes towards illegal immigration, even though this phenomenon is at the forefront of the political debate. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap, focusing on the role played by the media in shaping them.

3 Illegal immigration in the USA

Generally speaking, illegal immigration refers to labor movements across national borders taking place in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country. Assessing the number of illegal immigrants residing in the USA involves some educated guessing. It is well known that illegal aliens do respond to government surveys such as the Current Population Survey or the decennial Census. While the CPS and Census do not ask explicitly whether the foreign-born is legally or illegally present in the country, a wide range of research institutes and the Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS) within the Department of Homeland Security have constructed estimates of the number of illegal immigrants, for example, based on the socio-economic characteristics available in the CPS or Census data. The most common method to estimate the number of illegal immigrants is to take the difference between the measured immigrant population and the sum of past legal immigration flows. Estimates obtained using this methodology vary substantially, 15 but as of January 2006, the OIS reports that there were 11.6 million unauthorized immigrants in the USA. Of these, 4.2 millions had entered in 2000 or later, and close to 60% of the total number of illegal immigrants was from Mexico.

The number of illegals has been steadily increasing from the early nineties until today. Many estimates suggest that, between 1995 and 2005, the inflows of unauthorized migrants—at over 700,000 per year—have actually been larger than those of legal arrivals ( Passel 2005 ). Importantly, the distribution of illegals is highly concentrated. According to the OIS estimates, the ten states which were the largest recipients of undocumented immigrants accounted for approximately three quarters of the total, and California and Texas alone had more than four million illegal aliens in 2006. This is not surprising, as the two states share a border with Mexico, and at least since 1990, the vast majority of immigrants from that country are illegally living in the USA ( Passel 2005 ).

To understand the impact of illegal immigrants on domestic residents, it is important to analyze the socio-economic characteristics of these individuals. Recent estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center ( Passel 2005 ) suggest that the following stylized facts hold: (1) unauthorized immigrants are younger than both natives and legal immigrants; (2) they are substantially less educated than both natives and legal immigrants; (3) they work in lower wage occupations, and they earn substantially less than natives and legal migrants in the same occupations; (4) they are concentrated in a relatively small number of industries; 16 (5) poverty rates among illegals are particularly high; and (6) well over 50% of illegal immigrants do not have health insurance.

As a response to the rapid increase in the number of illegal immigrants in the last 10 years, two important pieces of legislation have been introduced on the Congress floor between 2005 and 2006. “The Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act” of 2005 (H.R. 4437, i.e., what we labeled the House plan in Section 1 ) was presented on June 12, 2005, by the Wisconsin Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner. The legislation was passed by the US House of Representatives on December 16, 2005, by a vote of 239 to 182 (with 92% of Republicans supporting it and 82% of Democrats opposing it), but it did not pass the Senate. Its main goal was to reduce illegal immigration flows, by introducing a series of measures ranging from the construction of 700 miles of reinforced fencing along the US–Mexico border to making it a crime to live in the USA illegally. The proposal was the catalyst of many immigrant rights protests, which culminated on April 10, 2006, when demonstrations against the bill and its provisions were carried out in 102 American cities.

The second bill, “The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act” (CIRA, S. 2611, i.e., what we label the Senate plan in Section 1 ) was instead a US Senate bill introduced by Democrat Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania on April 7, 2006. This bill took a more comprehensive approach to immigration reform and can be considered a compromise attempt after the failed introduction of the so-called Kennedy–McCain proposal of 2005 (S. 1033). Its main goal was also to increase security along the US southern border with Mexico, but it contained important additional provisions. In particular, it called for an expansion of the number of guest workers over and above those already present in the USA, through a new “blue card” visa program, and for allowing long-time illegal immigrants to gain legal status. This would have been the second major legalization initiative in 20 years, after the one included in the 1986 “Immigration Reform and Control Act.” The bill was passed by the Senate on May 25, 2006, by a vote of 62-36. More details on both measures are reported in Table  1 .

While neither bill became law because they failed to pass the conference committee, they have been important catalysts for the immigration debate of that period. Thus, understanding the drivers of individual views on these measures will provide us with valuable information on how illegal immigration is perceived.

In this study, we use the 2006 round of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), which was conducted by YouGov/Polimetrix of Palo Alto, California, and is the result of the joint effort of researchers in 30 US universities. The survey was carried out via the Internet and is based on a matched random sample, which has been constructed following a two-step procedure. First, a very large number of people—over 150,000 individuals—were recruited to participate in the online survey. Second, a random sample was drawn from the consumer samples available to YouGov/Polimetrix—which are representative of the US population—and the characteristics of these individuals were recorded. A subset of the respondents to the online survey were then selected by matching them—based on a set of demographic characteristics—to the individuals randomly drawn from the population (i.e., from the consumer files), using age, race, gender, income, education, and media usage. Propensity scores were then developed to ensure that the sample would match the characteristics of the US adult population as reflected in the 2004 Current Population Survey. 17

The Internet-based design has the important advantage of allowing researchers to base their analysis on a large sample of 36,421 individuals. As all survey designs, it faces some important limitations. In particular, as has been pointed out by Hill et al. (2007) , the approach followed by Polimetrix does not attempt to match respondents to target populations on political engagement or partisan commitment. Still, methodological analyses have concluded that “[...]although the opt-in Internet sample we analyze does have some bias, the bias is probably not so great as to vitiate the gains of inexpensive, large and targeted samples that the Internet methodology makes possible[...]” ( Hill et al. 2007 ). The CCES has already been used in several papers, ranging from the analysis of the determinants of US trade policy carried out by Guisinger (2009) to the study of the causes and consequences of public misperceptions of the size of the US immigrant population carried out by Citrin and Sides (2008) .

The main dependent variable in our empirical analysis is the answer to a question about whether the respondent is in favor of the Senate plan, which offered a path to legalization and citizenship to illegal immigrants. The exact wording is as follows: “Another issue is illegal immigration. One plan considered by the Senate would offer illegal immigrants who already live in the U.S. more opportunities to become legal citizens. Some politicians argue that people who have worked hard in jobs that the economy depends on should be offered the chance to live here legally. Other politicians argue that the plan is an amnesty that rewards people who have broken the law. What do you think? If you were faced with this decision, would you vote for or against this proposal?” We create a pro_lenient_plan dummy variable which equals 1 if the respondent answers he would have voted for the Senate proposal and 0 if he/she would have turned it down. We exclude from the analysis those who have answered “don’t know.” 18

There is an additional question in the CCES regarding the respondent’s likely vote on alternative illegal immigration proposals. In this case, the respondent is asked to give his comparative opinion about the Senate and the House plan. The exact wording of the question is as follows: “Congress has been debating different policies concerning immigration reform. The Senate proposal has a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. The House proposal, on the other hand, contains stricter enforcement and deportation of undocumented aliens. Which of these two items of reform do you think is more important?” We create a pro_lenient_plan2 dummy variable which equals 1 if the respondent answers he would have voted for the Senate proposal and 0 if he/she would have voted for the House plan. We therefore exclude from the analysis those who have answered “Don’t know.” Since this question was asked to a subsample of 16,231 respondents (i.e., not to the entire sample but only to those who were interviewed in the pilot study, held in August 2006), we rely on this question solely for robustness checks of the main results.

Regarding media exposure, respondents are first asked to state the frequency with which they watched a national evening news program in the week before the interview. For those who watched a news program at least once, there is an additional question, which asks them to mention the most frequently watched network for national evening news. 19 We create separate dummies for each most frequently watched network and an additional dummy for those who did not watch a national evening news program (the no_evening_news dummy).

The CCES survey also contains information on the age, gender, education, household income, employment status, immigration status, and political views of respondents. Education is coded according to a 1–6 ordered scale, with a value of 1 for those who have not completed high school and 6 for those with a post-graduate degree. Individuals are asked to classify their own income along a discrete scale of 14 income “brackets,” with interval size increasing from $5,000 to $30,000. 20 Previous research ( Scheve and Slaughter 2001 ; Mayda 2006 ) shows that the correlation between education and immigration attitudes is a function of labor force participation. Building on a question on employment status, we thus construct a dummy variable which equals 1 when the respondent belongs to the labor force, i.e., he/she is working full time or part time or is unemployed, and 0 otherwise.

Another question in the CCES survey provides information on the immigration status of the respondent. We use it for two different purposes: first, we exclude from the statistical analysis those who declare to be immigrants; second, for those who are US citizens and hence are included in our analysis, we use the question in order to extract some information on the family origin of the respondent. More specifically, we create a discrete variable ( immigrant origin ) on a 1–3 ordered scale, with a value of 1 for those whose parents and grandparents are US citizens; a value of 2 for those whose parents are US citizens, but at least one grandparent is an immigrant; and a value of 3 for those who declare that at least one of their parents is foreign-born.

Regarding political controls, the CCES survey has a question on self-reported ideology: individuals are asked to locate themselves on an ideological 0–100 scale, ranging from 0 for extremely liberal views to 100 for extremely conservative ones. Moreover, there are two variables measuring the party identification of the respondent. The first variable is a 3-point scale party id variable, which equals −1 for self-identified Democrats, 0 for Independents, and 1 for Republicans. The second variable is a 7-point scale indicator, ranging from 1 for strong Democrats to 7 for strong Republicans.

One might consider religion as an organized system of beliefs which could be systematically correlated with attitudes regarding policy issues. Among others, the CCES survey contains a question about the religious preferences of the respondent and one about the frequency of church attendance. We recode the church attendance variable as an ordinal one, which ranges from a value of 0 for those who declare to go to church “never or almost never” to a value of 3 for those who (declare to) go at least once a week or more. Moreover, the survey also includes a question on the perceived importance of religion in everyday life. In Section 6 , we explore whether our baseline results are robust to controlling for the religious attitudes of respondents.

Whether the respondent lives in an urban, suburban, or rural area might be correlated with the type and frequency of encounters with illegal immigrants and hence with his/her views on the issue. Also, it can be correlated with other unobserved features of his/her political views. Since respondents are not asked about their location in terms of urban, suburban, or rural area but are asked about their county of residence, we match the CCES data with county-level information, which are taken from the ICPSR County Characteristics File. 21 In particular, for each county, we calculate a measure of population density in 2005, by dividing population in that year by land area, as expressed in square miles. This density measure is in turn expressed in tens of thousands. The only reasonable proxy for the rural-urban location which is directly available in the CCES survey is a question about whether the respondent owns a pickup truck. We use this variable in Section 6 .

Other county-level and state-level features might be correlated with our dependent variable and other explanatory variables. More specifically, in Section 6 , we control for the unemployment rate in 2005 and the crime rate for every 100 inhabitants in 2004, both measured at the county level. Finally, we match the CCES data with information on the estimated fraction of illegal immigrants (over total population) living in each state in year 2005. The estimated number of illegal immigrants by state is calculated by the Pew Hispanic Center, while total population data is taken from the US Census Bureau. We also compute a measure of the fraction of legal immigrants over total population in 2005. The number of legal immigrants by state is computed as the difference between the number of foreign-born individuals and the number of illegal immigrants. The number of foreign-born individuals is derived from the Pew Hispanic Center tabulations of the Census Bureau’s 2005 American Community Survey. 22

Summary statistics of these variables are shown in Table  2 , separately for individual-, county-, and state-level variables. The large majority of respondents is against the Senate plan. Regarding the most frequently watched national evening news program, Fox News obtains the highest ratings, with NBC and CNN ranking second and third, respectively. Age, education, and household income are positively skewed, and this is also the case for the conservative ideology score.

At the county level, the population density, unemployment, and crime rate are all positively skewed and show a sizeable degree of cross-sectional variation. Regarding state-level variables, the estimated fraction of illegal immigrants displays some non-negligible variation as well, ranging from a quarter of a percentage point for West Virginia to around 7 percentage points for California. This also applies to the fraction of legal immigrants, which ranges from about a fifth of a percentage point for Mississippi to almost 20 percentage points again for California.

5 Empirical results

In this section, we empirically analyze the individual-level propensity to support the Senate plan on illegal immigration as a function of respondents’ characteristics. We run a set of probit regressions with the pro_lenient_plan dummy as the dependent variable, excluding all individuals who describe themselves as immigrants. The regression output is displayed in Table  3 where, for each explanatory variable, we report the marginal effect. Standard errors are adjusted for clustering at the state level and are shown under each marginal effect.

Notice that, in the CCES question we analyze, individuals are asked to evaluate the Senate plan but are not mentioned any explicit alternative. 23 The interpretation of the marginal effects of a number of variables (in particular, education and income) depends on which alternative voters have in mind—whether the status quo or the House plan—as they evaluate the Senate plan. To shed light on this point, we run the same regressions as in Table  3 using the second question—the pro_lenient_plan2 dummy variable—as the dependent variable (see Table 7 in the Appendix ). We find that the estimates of the marginal effects of most variables in Table 7 in the Appendix are very similar to the corresponding estimates in Table  3 . 24 As a result, we conclude that the alternative respondents have in mind, as they evaluate the Senate plan, is the House plan.

5.1 The impact of media exposure on individual attitudes

In Table  3 , we report our baseline results. We start with a specification where we omit ideological and political party controls (regression [1]). Next, in column [2], we introduce the conservative ideology score and the 3-point party id variable. In regression [3], we replace the 3-point party id variable with a 7-point one and we include the county-specific measure of population density as well as the state-specific measures of exposure to illegal and legal immigration. In columns [4] and [5], we introduce state and designated market area (DMA) fixed effects, respectively. 25 In the first five columns of Table  3 , we use dummy variables for each media channel, with CBS viewers as the omitted category.

In order to analyze the role played by media exposure—in particular in relation to self-selection issues—it is crucial to compare the estimates with and without ideological controls, i.e., column [1] vs. columns [2]–[5]. By themselves, political and ideological variables are very significant predictors of policy attitudes towards illegal immigration. A 1-point increase in the conservative ideology scale (which is defined on a 0–100 range) is associated with about half of a percentage point decrease in the probability of supporting the Senate plan. By the same token, the 3-point party id variable is negatively and significantly correlated with the lenient plan dummy, and the same is true for the 7-point party id, which we introduce from column [3]. When not controlling for self-reported ideology and party identification, individuals watching Fox News are 26 percentage points less likely to support the Senate plan—as compared to CBS viewers (the excluded category)—while this marginal effect shrinks to between 9 and 10 percentage points when we do control for ideological and partisan preferences. Similarly, PBS viewers are 23 percentage points more likely than CBS viewers to support the lenient plan in column [1] and between 14 and 15 percentage points in the following columns. To the extent that conservative individuals have a preference for Fox News and dislike the Senate plan on illegal immigration, omitting controls for ideology and party id biases downwards the marginal effect of the Fox News dummy, which ends up absorbing those self-selection effects. 26 Along the same lines, to the extent that liberal individuals appreciate PBS and the more lenient Senate plan, the marginal effect of the PBS dummy is biased upwards when not controlling for ideology and party id.

On the other hand, those watching CNN are about 5 percentage points less likely to favor the Senate plan when not controlling for ideology and between 8 and 9 percentage points less likely when doing so. Prima facie, it is perhaps surprising that those watching CNN are systematically less likely to support the Senate plan than CBS viewers, but this result can be explained in light of what in Section 1 we have dubbed the “Lou Dobbs effect.” 27 Lou Dobbs, the former anchor and managing editor of CNN evening news, has been very vocal regarding the costs imposed by illegal immigration on the American public and has consistently opposed the Senate bill proposal. This is how he described illegal immigration on his CNN website: “The single most critical issue to protect our nation is the securing of our borders and our ports. Every day, tens of thousands of containers enter our country from other nations and they are never inspected. At the same time, our government turns a blind eye to the thousands of people who illegally cross our borders. These scenarios exist because corporate America has convinced our leaders that this is one of the best ways to remain competitive.” When the Senate passed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act , Lou Dobbs introduced the story with the following words: “Tonight, the Senate has just voted for a so-called comprehensive immigration reform bill. The vote, 62-36. The legislation gives amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and sharply escalates the war on our middle class and raises the cost of federal government substantially.” 28 From the point of view of ideological self-selection, the bias towards 0 of the CNN dummy variable in regression [1]—induced by omitting ideological controls—suggests that CNN viewers are more liberal than CBS viewers (the omitted category). In addition, and most importantly, the result for CNN—that the impact of the news program works in the opposite direction with respect to self-selection—gives us confidence that our correlations are at least in part driven by the causal impact of media exposure. In other words, the coefficient on CNN represents, if anything, a lower bound on the causal impact of CNN on attitudes towards illegal immigrants.

It is also interesting to notice that the marginal effects of media exposure are remarkably stable once we start controlling for ideological and partisan preferences. As mentioned above, beginning with column [3], we replace the 3-point party id variable with the 7-point one, but this does not affect our estimates of the media exposure variables. 29

Focusing on the other media channels, individuals watching NBC, MSNBC, or other networks appear not to be significantly different from CBS viewers in their propensity to support the more lenient immigration plan, while viewers of ABC News are systematically less likely to favor the Senate plan than CBS viewers, with an estimated marginal effect between 3 and 4 percentage points. Finally, respondents declaring not to watch any national evening news program are significantly less likely than CBS viewers to be in favor of the Senate plan.

Overall, the evidence we have gathered is consistent with the fact that self-selection explains a sizeable portion of the correlation between policy attitudes on illegal immigration and media exposure, but not the whole of it: persuasion, as best exemplified by the Lou Dobbs effect, appears to be a non-negligible factor. How do the effects of media exposure relate to the ideological position of each TV channel? In other words, is it true that more conservative channels have a more negative impact on the probability of supporting the lenient Senate plan? If one believes that self-selection is satisfactorily accounted for by controlling for the ideology and party id of the respondent, then the estimated marginal effect of each channel dummy measures the persuasive effect of that channel on attitudes towards illegal immigration. Our goal is to relate this persuasive effect to the ideological position of the TV channel. While measures of the partisan stance of media outlets are available in the literature, we can directly exploit the self-selection argument in order to build our own measure of each TV channel’s ideological position. To do so, we proceed as follows. A given TV channel reveals itself to be less conservative than CBS if it is chosen by people who are less conservative than the (omitted) category of CBS viewers. In turn, this is true if and only if the marginal effect of that channel dummy is more positive when not controlling for the ideology and party id of the respondents than when doing so. More formally, let the marginal effect of a TV channel dummy in regression (1) be δ 1 and the marginal effect of the same TV channel in regression (5) be δ 5 . In turn, δ 1 = δ 5 +OVB where OVB is the omitted variable bias arising from the omission of ideological controls. We know that

where Ideology represents the self-reported (conservative) ideology variable. In other words, the omitted variable bias is proportional to the product of the correlation between our measure of viewers’ ideology and the observed TV channel and of the correlation between our measure of viewer’s ideology and attitudes towards illegal immigration. If δ 1 > δ 5 , it must be true that OVB>0, and therefore, since our estimates suggest that Corr(Ideology,Attitudes)<0, then it must be true that Corr(Ideology,TVChannel)<0, i.e., the TV channel is not watched by viewers with conservative ideology. In other words, the TV channel reveals itself to be less conservative than the CBS benchmark, based on the preferences of viewers who choose it. In particular, the expression above suggests to divide the estimated OVB by the correlation between ideology and immigration attitudes, in order to obtain a normalized measure of the average conservative ideology of each TV channel.

The outcome of this exercise is illustrated in Fig.  1 where—for each TV channel—we plot the estimated marginal effect—on the propensity to support the Senate plan—against its overall ideological position on a liberal-conservative scale. More precisely, the former is taken from column [5] in Table  3 , while the latter is calculated as the difference in the estimated marginal effect of each channel dummy between specification [1] and specification [5], again in Table  3 , divided by the estimated correlation of the conservative ideology score with attitudes. The relationship appears to be negative, since more conservative channels like Fox News are associated with a more negative effect on the propensity to support the Senate plan, and vice versa for a liberal channel like PBS. It is especially interesting to focus on the relative position of CNN, which is close to CBS and NBC from the point of view of the overall ideological position (as revealed by its viewers), but has a negative effect on immigration attitudes, the size of which is comparable to that of Fox News. 30

Estimated ideological position of each TV channel and effect on illegal immigration attitudes. Notes: The graph displays the estimated marginal effect on the propensity to support the Senate plan for each TV channel against its overall ideological position. The former is taken from column [2] in Table  3 . The latter is a measure of conservative ideology and is calculated as the difference in the estimated marginal effect of each channel dummy when moving from specification [1] to specification [2], i.e., when including ideological and party id controls, divided by the estimated correlation between the ideology score and migration attitudes. See Section 5.1 for additional details

The exposure to real-world events is also likely to affect individual attitudes or at least to be a significant predictor thereof. At the county level, population density is positively and significantly correlated with the propensity to support the Senate plan: column [3] in Table  3 shows that an increase of density of 10,000 individuals per square mile is associated with a 3-percentage-point increase in the probability of being in favor of the more lenient immigration plan. This result is consistent with the idea that living in an urban area increases the frequency of encounters with illegal immigrants and hence positively affects the respondent’s views on the issue. Thus, this finding resonates with the so-called intergroup contact theory ( Allport 1954 ). According to this theory, as developed within the field of social psychology, the interaction between different racial groups can reduce prejudice and foster more friendly attitudes. Also, living in an urban area is likely to be correlated with other unobserved features of the respondent’s political views.

In column [3], we also control for the state-specific fraction of illegal immigrants: we find that respondents living in states with a higher fraction of illegal immigrants are significantly more likely to support the more lenient Senate plan. The size of this correlation is quite large, as a 1-percentage-point increase in the fraction of illegals is associated with a 0.7-percentage-point increase in the propensity to support the Senate plan. This result is again consistent with the “intergroup contact theory.” One might be concerned that the partial correlation between attitudes and the state-specific fraction of illegal immigrants is picking up some omitted variable at the state level, e.g., exposure to legal immigrants. Thus, we also control for the state-specific fraction of legal immigrants and find that it is not significantly correlated with the dependent variable. Columns [4]–[5] replicate the specification featured in column [3] but with the addition of state and DMA fixed effects, respectively: the estimated marginal effects are remarkably robust to this change.

In the second part of Table  3 , we further investigate the relationship between immigration attitudes and the respondent’s favorite evening news broadcast. In particular, we check whether the way each news broadcast covers illegal immigration helps explain the previously estimated marginal effects on the TV channel dummies. Both the overall amount and type of media coverage devoted to a certain issue could matter. In our case, we focus on overall coverage, since it can be easily measured in a replicable fashion. The Dow Jones Factiva online archive allows to search the transcripts of evening news programs on ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, PBS, and NBC. We proxy the total amount of coverage to which respondents are exposed—before being interviewed during the 2006 midterm campaign—with the broadcast-specific number of stories featuring the words “immigration” or “immigrants” between January 2006 and October 2006. We do the same with the search terms “illegal immigration” or “illegal immigrants,” and we compute the difference between those two counts, in order to obtain a measure of immigration coverage that does not mention illegal immigration. 31

Table 8 in the Appendix reports media coverage data for each of the six TV channels. It is interesting to notice that Fox News and CNN devoted the largest amount of coverage to immigration overall, while PBS and CBS devoted the least. However, when looking at illegal immigration, PBS dedicated much less coverage than CBS, while CNN gave more coverage than Fox.

In the second part of Table  3 , for comparison purposes, we start with a baseline specification (column [6]) which includes only the respondents mentioning the six channels as favorite ones—thus, we exclude respondents who do not watch a national evening news program—but we do not control for media coverage variables. In column [7], we add as regressors the channel-specific count of stories mentioning illegal immigration and the channel-specific count of stories mentioning immigration but not the illegal aspect of it. There is a very strong and negative correlation between those measures of media coverage and the propensity to support the Senate plan. In terms of magnitudes, ten additional illegal immigration stories during the January/October 2006 period are associated with a 1-percentage-point decrease in the probability of supporting the more lenient plan on immigration. The size of the effect for stories mentioning immigration but not the illegal one is the same. All other estimated marginal probabilities are practically unaffected by this cardinal specification of the media exposure variable.

This last result—i.e., the sizeable and significant impact of the number of immigration-related stories on the propensity to support the Senate plan—is interesting because it provides additional evidence that the media effects we are estimating are not driven only by self-selection. As a matter of fact, while it is plausible that individuals self-select into evening news programs based on the broad ideological position of the channel, it is less likely that self-selection works on the basis of the count of stories covering immigration.

Finally, for the specific result on the impact of FOX news, we are able to provide causal evidence based on an instrument used in the literature ( DellaVigna and Kaplan 2007 ). In particular, for each individual surveyed in the CCES data set, we used the information on county of residence and merged the survey data with information on the introduction of Fox News (and CNN) in US cable markets. 32 To allow for a non-linear effect of the introduction of the channel, we used the number of years since it was introduced in the individual’s county of residence and created three variables, each capturing the availability of Fox News (and CNN) in 1998, 2000, and 2003. In particular, each of the variables gives the percentage of the population in each county which could access the network in each of the 3 years. We used these variables as instruments for the respondent’s consumption of Fox News as well as indicators for whether the individuals subscribe to cable or satellite TV, and the results are shown in Table  4 . The first column reports OLS estimates, where we restrict the sample to the states for which the data on US cable markets are available. Columns 2 and 4 present the first stages of specifications where we, respectively, exclude and include the CNN variable, and columns 3 and 5 present the corresponding second-stage specifications. The first stage is strong in both cases, with a F value of the excluded instruments equal to 11.33 (column 2) and 14.07 (column 4). The second-stage results, which are significant at the 5% level, confirm that Fox News consumption negatively impacts the probability that the respondent favors the more lenient (towards illegal migrants) Senate plan.

5.2 Socio-demographic and economic determinants of individual attitudes

Besides studying the role played by the media, the regressions reported in Table  3 allow us to analyze the labor market and welfare state determinants of attitudes in favor of legalization, accounting for a number of socio-demographic individual-level controls.

First, we find that the impact of age on the propensity to support the Senate plan is characterized by a U-shaped relationship, as shown by the negative marginal effect of age and the positive marginal effect of age squared. The estimated minimum in the propensity to support the Senate plan occurs at an age between 55 (column [2]) and 58 (column [1]). In other words, as they approach midlife, young respondents become more opposed to the legalization plan, while older respondents become more in favor as they move towards retirement. A plausible interpretation of the positive marginal effect for elderly individuals is that illegal immigrants—who would be legalized under the Senate plan and deported under the House plan—offer services which are mostly consumed by the old, for example, elderly care and landscaping services.

Moreover, females appear to be significantly more supportive of the Senate plan only when not controlling for ideology (column [1]). In fact, once we control for self-reported ideology and party id in the following regressions, we do not find evidence of a gender effect on pro-legalization attitudes. This result can be easily explained by the fact that women are on average more liberal than men so that—when not controlling for ideology—the ideology effect on illegal immigration attitudes is absorbed by the female dummy. A similar interpretation can be given to the marginal effect of the Black dummy variable, which is positive and significant in column [1] and becomes insignificant in the following regressions.

Not surprisingly, being a Latino has a positive and significant impact on pro-legalization attitudes, controlling or not for ideology and party id. Our estimates also show that individuals are more willing to support the Senate plan the more recent the immigration status of their family (as captured by immigrant origin ). The size of this effect is relatively large: A one-point increase in the immigrant origin variable is associated with an approximately 2-percentage-point increase in the propensity to support the lenient immigration plan.

Respondents are significantly more likely to support the Senate plan, the higher their education level and their household income. Both correlations are strongly significant throughout the table, although the magnitude of the effect is larger for education. 33

The positive impact of education on pro-legalization attitudes is consistent with the labor-market competition hypothesis ( Scheve and Slaughter 2001 ; Kessler 2001 ; Mayda 2006 ; O’Rourke and Sinnott 2006 ). 34 In fact, the Senate plan is likely to increases the labor market competition faced by unskilled natives—relative to the House plan. Since undocumented migrants are mostly unskilled, the effect of legalizing them, as opposed to deporting them, is to increase the relative supply of unskilled workers in the USA.

In Appendix Table 9, we split the sample according to whether the respondent belongs to the labor force or not. 35 We find that the estimate of the marginal effect of education is systematically larger for those who belong to the labor force than for those who do not. This evidence confirms the above labor market interpretation of the marginal effect of education. In addition, the impact of education on legalization attitudes is positive and significant for individuals out of the labor force as well. Thus, our results are also consistent with a noneconomic interpretation of the effect of education, according to which the education variable is to some extent capturing the cultural openness of the respondent (see, for example, Hainmueller and Hiscox 2007 ). Thus, both noneconomic and labor market considerations shape the impact of education on public opinion on the Senate plan.

The impact of household income has been used in the literature to proxy for the perceived effect that immigration has on natives through the welfare state channel ( Hanson et al. 2007 ; Hanson 2005 ; Facchini and Mayda 2009 ). In the presence of a redistributive welfare state, the positive coefficient on individual income suggests that respondents perceive the legalization provision contained in the Senate plan as bringing about an increase in the welfare state burden created by illegal immigrants, which is viewed negatively by both rich and poor natives, but by the poor even more than by the rich (given that the poor are the ones who are more adversely impacted by the reduction of public services). 36

6 Robustness checks

In this section, we perform two sets of robustness checks on our baseline results. First, we carry out a series of falsification exercises on the role played by Lou Dobbs’ CNN on migration attitudes, by looking at questions that tap into other policy preferences. Second, we introduce further controls at the individual and local levels to better deal with ideological self-selection into TV channels and, more generally, with omitted variable bias.

6.1 Placebo tests on the Lou Dobbs effect

We are concerned that individual-level unobservables might drive the negative correlation we find between CNN viewership and the probability of supporting the more lenient Senate plan. To deal with this issue, we exploit the richness of the CCES data, which contains several additional questions tapping into the preferences of individuals on other policy issues. The idea is to assess whether the similarity of CNN and Fox News viewers’ opinions is confined only to immigration policy or whether it is a broader phenomenon.

To this end, we focus on answers to three additional questions and replicate specifications (1) and (2) from Table  3 using them as dependent variables. First, we look at opinions on an increase in the mandatory minimum wage. 37

We create a pro_minimum_wage dummy, which equals 1 if the individual would favor an increase in the minimum wage and 0 otherwise. Second, we consider a question on whether the Iraq war was a mistake. 38 Again, we construct a iraq_mistake dummy which takes a value of 1 if the respondent believes that the war was a mistake and 0 otherwise. Finally, we also look at a question on the desirability of a trade policy measure, i.e., participation of the USA in the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) agreement. 39 In particular, we create an anti_CAFTA dummy variable, which takes a value of 1 if the respondent opposes the agreement and 0 otherwise.

The results of the exercise are displayed in Table  5 , which is divided in three parts, one for each of the three questions. The comparison of the estimated coefficients on the TV channel dummies between the two specifications in each subgroup—controlling and not controlling for ideology and party identification—allows us to assess the extent of ideological self-selection. Consider for instance the attitudes of Fox News viewers on the minimum wage and the Iraq war. When not controlling for ideology (columns [1] and [3]), these individuals are, respectively, 44 and 34% less likely to support an increase in the minimum wage and to think that the Iraq war was a mistake, as compared to the excluded category of CBS viewers. Controlling instead for ideology and party id, these effects shrink to, respectively, 21 and 10%. This evidence corresponds to what we have already found for illegal immigration.

On the other side of the political spectrum, we find an opposite pattern for PBS viewers, which again parallels our results regarding immigration attitudes. Finally, when looking at these three issues, CNN viewers appear broadly similar to PBS viewers, as they are (i) more favorable to an increase in the minimum wage, (ii) more likely to consider the Iraq war a mistake, and (iii) more likely to oppose the CAFTA agreement, as compared to the baseline category of CBS viewers (Table  5 , columns [1], [3], and [5]). Moreover, when controlling for self-reported ideology and party id, the estimated marginal effects for CNN viewers similarly shrink in magnitude. 40

In Section 5.1 , we correlated the implied ideological position of each media channel with the estimated effect on migration attitudes. From this point of view, Fig.  1 highlighted the peculiar case of CNN, a comparatively liberal TV channel with a negative effect on the propensity to support the more lenient Senate plan on illegal immigration. In Figs.  2 , 3 and 4 , we replicate the design of Fig.  1 but we focus on these three additional policy questions. More precisely, in Fig.  2 , we plot—for each TV channel—the estimated marginal effect on the propensity to support an increase in the minimum wage against its overall ideological position. The former is taken from column [2] in Table  5 . The latter is a measure of conservative ideology and is calculated as the difference in the estimated marginal effect of each channel dummy between specification [1] and specification [2], divided by the estimated correlation between the ideology score and minimum wage attitudes. We proceed in a similar fashion for the Iraq war (Fig.  3 ) and CAFTA questions (Fig.  4 ).

Estimated ideological position of each TV channel and effect on minimum wage attitudes. Notes: The graphs display—for each TV channel—its overall ideological position against the estimated marginal effect on the propensity to favor an increase in the minimum wage (Fig.  2 ), to think that the Iraq war was a mistake (Fig.  3 ), and to oppose the CAFTA trade agreement. See Section 6.1 for additional details

Estimated ideological position of each TV channel and effect on Iraq war attitudes. Notes: The graphs display—for each TV channel—its overall ideological position against the estimated marginal effect on the propensity to favor an increase in the minimum wage (Fig.  2 ), to think that the Iraq war was a mistake (Fig.  3 ), and to oppose the CAFTA trade agreement. See Section 6.1 for additional details

Estimated ideological position of each TV channel and effect on CAFTA attitudes. Notes: The graphs display—for each TV channel—its overall ideological position against the estimated marginal effect on the propensity to favor an increase in the minimum wage (Fig.  2 ), to think that the Iraq war was a mistake (Fig.  3 ), and to oppose the CAFTA trade agreement. See Section 6.1 for additional details

These three figures show the presence of a strongly negative and significant correlation between the estimated ideological position of each TV channel and its implied effect on viewers’ opinion. Most importantly—and differently from Fig.  1 —CNN does not appear to be an outlier at all, as it looks like a liberal media outlet with liberal effects on attitudes. In other words, we reject the alternative hypothesis that CNN viewers hold less liberal views on illegal immigration simply because they happen to be less liberal across the board.

6.2 Additional controls

The CCES survey contains a host of questions that allow us to further investigate the lifestyle and ideological position of the respondent. Moreover, by matching the CCES data with county-level information, we can better control for the politically relevant features of the local environment where the respondent lives. In Table  6 , we check the robustness for our baseline results to controlling for these potentially confounding factors.

In column [1] of Table  6 , we include the same variables as in column [3] of Table  3 plus a control for whether the respondent owns a pickup truck: as discussed in Section 4 , this variable might simultaneously capture whether the individual does not live in a city and something about his lifestyle. We find that owning a pickup truck is associated with a 5.5-percentage-point reduction in the probability to support the Senate plan.

As discussed by Guiso et al. (2003) , individual attitudes might be systematically correlated with the type and intensity of religious beliefs being held. Regarding the specific topic of immigration, Guiso et al. (2003) show that individuals interviewed within the World Values Survey (WVS) are significantly more intolerant towards immigrants if they were raised religiously and they report to be currently religious, while being actively religious is not significantly correlated with immigration attitudes. Moreover, Guiso et al. (2003) show that Catholics, Protestants, and Muslims are more likely to be intolerant towards immigrants than agnostic individuals, while Buddhists display the opposite tendency.

In columns [2] and [3] of Table  6 , we exploit the CCES questions tapping into the religious beliefs and habits of respondents. More specifically, we include dummy variables for the respondent declaring to be Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, of another religion, or of another Christian religion, keeping as the omitted category those who declare not to have any religious preference. We also control for each individual’s church attendance frequency and for the importance he/she attaches to religion in everyday life. Self-declared Protestants and Catholics are around 6 percentage points less likely to support the Senate plan on illegal immigration, as compared to individuals with no religious preference. The correlation is of the same sign and larger in magnitude (around 8 percentage points) for those who declare to belong to another Christian religion. The level of significance is 1% for all three marginal effects. On the other hand, the propensity to favor the more lenient plan on illegal immigration is significantly and positively correlated with church attendance. 41 Finally, the religion importance dummy is not significantly correlated with the respondent’s opinion on the illegal immigration plan.

From this point of view, our results are reasonably in line with those obtained by Guiso et al.: we similarly find that immigration attitudes are significantly more negative for Catholics and Protestants; however, we find no significant effect for Muslims. This could be due to the lower number of Muslims in the USA, as compared to the cross-country WVS sample. Moreover, differently from Guiso et al., we find that church attendance has a mitigating effect on negative immigration attitudes. Of course, one should handle this comparison with some further caution, since (i) our sample focuses on the USA; (ii) we are concerned with illegal immigration, rather than with the immigration phenomenon as a whole; and (iii) we use as the dependent variable a policy-related question, instead of a direct question about attitudes.

An additional concern regarding our results is the possibility that they are partially driven by omitted variables at the state or county level. In Table  3 , we have already shown that our findings are robust to the inclusion of state and DMA fixed effects as well as to controlling for population density at the county level. In column [3] of Table  6 , we further control for the county-specific 2004 crime rate and 2005 unemployment rate: the rationale for this is that individuals might be particularly sensitive to their economic and social environment when they are asked about a policy proposal regarding a potentially very contentious issue.

We find a positive, statistically significant and quantitatively non-negligible correlation between the county-level crime rate and the propensity to support the Senate plan: an additional crime event for every 100 inhabitants is associated with about a 1-percentage-point increase in the probability of favoring the more lenient plan on immigration. Conditionally on all the caveats regarding the distinction between causation and correlation, this result is consistent with the hypothesis that individuals on average believe that an immigrant’s illegal status is conducive to a higher propensity to criminal behavior and that legalization might help break this vicious link. On the other hand, we find no significant impact of the unemployment rate. It is also worthwhile to notice that, in columns [1] and [2], there is a mildly significant and negative relationship between the propensity to support the Senate plan and the state-specific fraction of legal immigrants. 42 It is still the case that the fraction of illegal immigrants is positively and significantly correlated with the pro_lenient_plan dummy, mildly so in column [3].

In the second part of Table  6 (columns [4], [5], and [6]), we replicate the format of the first part but use the cardinal measure of immigration coverage (as already explored in the second part of Table  3 ). When doing so, we do not find significant departures from the results in Table  3 and—regarding the robustness checks themselves—from those displayed in the first part of Table  6 .

7 Conclusions

In this paper, we have analyzed the determinants of public opinion on illegal immigration and, in particular, the role played by the media in shaping these attitudes. Our main results suggest that both economic and noneconomic drivers are important. We find that respondents are more favorable to the plan on illegal immigration introduced in the US Senate in 2006, the more skilled, more liberal, and richer they are. Furthermore, we find that individuals watching Fox and CNN evening news are substantially more likely to oppose the Senate plan than those who watch CBS. PBS viewers are instead more likely to support it.

Our paper thus provides strongly suggestive and robust evidence that the media do play an important role in shaping individual preferences on an important policy issue like illegal immigration. Still, to the extent that we do not have a clean natural experiment, our findings must be interpreted with caution. As we have repeatedly stressed in the paper, the crucial confounding factor is self-selection: individuals do choose to expose themselves to a media outlet, whose ideological position is close to theirs. Still, our analysis points out that CNN viewers, who according to our findings entertain liberal preferences, share opinions towards the Senate plan that are similar to those of FOX viewers, a much more conservative group, whereas they differ from them on a wide array of other issues. This finding is consistent with what we have named the “Lou Dobbs” effect: the CNN anchorman—who entertains a very negative position about illegal immigration—appears to have been able to influence his viewer’s opinions on the legislation introduced in the US Senate, making them less supportive of a proposal that included a substantial legalization initiative. 43

1 A few papers have focused on questions related to illegal immigration in specific regions. Hood III and Morris (2000 ), Newton (2000) , and Tam and Cain (2001) , for instance, have looked at the determinants of support for proposition 187 in California, which limited the access enjoyed by illegal immigrants to a series of welfare state benefits.

2 http://cces.gov.harvard.edu/data .

3 Lou Dobbs, the anchorman and managing editor of CNN evening news at the time of the survey ( Lou Dobbs Tonight ), has been very vocal about the costs of illegal immigration and a staunch opponent of the Senate plan.

4 The estimates reported above are based on regressions which control for self-reported ideology and party identification.

5 For direct evidence on the effects of legalization on undocumented immigrants’ job perspectives, see Kossoudji and Cobb-Clark (2002 ) and Orrenius and Zavodny (2007) .

6 See Espenshade and Hempstead (1996) and Hainmueller and Hiscox (2007) for an alternative interpretation of the empirical evidence on the impact of skill.

7 Experimental evidence, such as that provided by Iyengar et al. (1982) , lends the strongest support to the presence of a causal link going from the media to the public agenda.

8 See Krosnick and Miller (1996) for a review of this literature. For lab experiments on priming, see Iyengar and Kinder (1987) and Valentino et al. (2002) , with the latter specifically focused on racial attributes. See also Lenz (2009) for a critical evaluation of the concept of priming.

9 Specifically on migration, Brader et al. (2008) investigate—within a survey experiment—how the framing of the issue affects individual attitudes. They find that a Latino frame, when coupled with some emphasis on the costs of immigration, is especially conducive to negative feelings towards immigration through the “anxiety” channel.

10 From this point of view, these contributions build on the empirical literature which aims at measuring the ideological position of media outlets. See, e.g., Groseclose and Milyo (2005) , Puglisi (2011) , Lott Jr and Hassett (2004 ), Gentzkow and Shapiro (2010) , Larcinese et al. (2011) , and Puglisi and Snyder Jr (2011 ).

11 Chiang and Knight (2011 ) use interview data to assess the effect of a presidential candidate’s endorsement by a newspaper on its readers’ propensity to vote for that candidate. Exploiting the difference between individuals being interviewed before or after the publication of the endorsement, they show that only surprising endorsements, i.e., those that depart from the expected ideological stance of the newspaper, affect voting behavior.

12 Larcinese et al. (2011 ) have found evidence for this type of behavior looking at the differential coverage of good vs. bad economic news as a function of the political affiliation of the incumbent president.

13 In fact, as emphasized by McCombs (2002) and Weaver (2007) , the concepts of priming and framing do overlap.

14 Citrin et al. (1997 ), using the 1992 and 1994 ANES surveys, find instead only limited support for the role played by economic drivers.

15 See Hanson (2006) for more details.

16 For instance, 26% of the workers in landscaping services and 20% of those in meat/poultry packing are unauthorized. According to Passel (2005) , in ten industries, illegal immigrants represent more than 10% of the overall labor force.

17 For additional methodological details, see Ansolabehere and Schaffner (2010) and http://cces.gov.harvard.edu/data .

18 We have analyzed the robustness of our findings when we include the “don’t know” observations in, alternatively, the pro-migration category or in the anti-migration category of the dependent variable. The results are available upon request, and in both cases, the estimates are remarkably similar to those we derive excluding the “don’t know” observations. Most likely, this is due to the relatively small number of “don’t know” observations and suggests that excluding them from the analysis is unlikely to be an issue.

19 The exact wording is as follows: “Which network do you watch most frequently for national evening news?”

20 There is an additional category for those who decline to answer. We exclude them from the analysis, since it is unclear whether they are drawn disproportionately from the highest or the lowest income bracket.

21 ICPSR Study No. 20660: see http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/cocoon/ICPSR/STUDY/20660.xml .

22 See http://pewhispanic.org/reports/foreignborn/ .

23 On the other hand, in the second question, individuals are asked about the Senate vs. House plans. We have decided not to use the second question as our main dependent variable since it is asked to a substantially smaller number of respondents.

24 The most important differences are that, in the regressions using the second question, the Black dummy variable is often negative and significant when we control for ideology; in addition, the fraction of illegal immigrants at the state level does not have a significant effect.

25 DMAs identify the different TV cable markets in the USA; they are named after the main city (or cities) in each area. See DellaVigna and Kaplan (2007) for more details.

26 This result is in fact consistent with the Groseclose and Milyo (2005) analysis of think tank quotes, which places Fox News’ Special Report with Brit Hume significantly to the right with respect to CBS Evening News.

27 See also Akdenizli et al. (2008) .

28 The excerpt is taken from Lou Dobbs Tonight, May 25, 2006.

29 This replacement marginally goes in the direction of increasing the point estimates of the marginal effect of the Fox News dummy (i.e., reducing its absolute value) and decreasing the one on the CNN dummy (i.e., increasing its absolute value).

30 In fact, when including CNN, the relationship between the overall ideological position of each TV channel and its persuasive effect on immigration attitudes is negative and not far from statistical significance at the 10% level, while it is significant almost at the 5% level when excluding CNN. One can also notice that the so-called Big Three, i.e., the oldest US networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC), are closely clustered in the scatter plot, while PBS, the publicly financed channel, displays the most liberal stance on both dimensions. In Section 6.1 , we carry out a series of placebo experiments to illustrate how these findings are unique to the immigration question.

31 A word of caution regarding Fox News: Since the transcripts for its evening news broadcast are not available, we instead look at those of the O’Reilly Factor.

32 We thank Stefano Della Vigna for kindly sharing these data with us.

33 The only exception is the coefficient on income in column 1, which is not significant. This is likely due to an omitted variable bias since, when we control for ideology in the following specifications, the coefficient becomes strongly significant.

34 In general, the labor market competition hypothesis predicts that the level of individual skill should be positively correlated with pro-immigration preferences in countries where immigrants increase the labor market competition for unskilled natives (for example, when immigrants are unskilled) and negatively correlated in countries where immigrants increase the labor market competition for skilled natives (for example, when immigrants are skilled). See Figure 5 in the online Appendix .

35 Notice that students are excluded from both subsamples.

36 For a somewhat different point of view, see Camarota (2005) .

37 The exact wording of the CCES question is as follows: “As you may know, the federal minimum wage is currently $5.15 an hour. Do you favor or oppose raising the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour over the next two years, or not?”

38 The exact wording of the question is as follows: “Looking back, do you think the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, or should the U.S. have stayed out?”

39 The exact wording of the question is as follows: “This year Congress also debated a new free trade agreement that reduces barriers to trade between the U.S. and countries in Central America. Some politicians argue that the agreement allows America to better compete in the global economy and would create more stable democracies in Central America. Other politicians argue that it helps businesses to move jobs abroad where labor is cheaper and does not protect American producers [...] What do you think? If you were faced with this decision, would you vote for or against the trade agreement?”

40 Interestingly, on these three issues, MSNBC viewers appear to be similar to the PBS ones, both in the size of the estimated coefficients and in the changes taking place when controlling for ideology.

41 When distinguishing according to the religious faith of the respondent, further results—available upon request—show that the church attendance variable is statistically significant only for Protestants, Catholics, and individuals belonging to another Christian obedience.

42 The relationship is no longer significant in column [3].

43 The departure of Lou Dobbs from CNN in November 2009 can be interpreted as an ex post confirmation of his “heretic” position within the network. In fact, it came after a mounting wave of criticisms regarding his overall stance on the immigration issue and the extended coverage he devoted to the so-called birther conspiracy theory, i.e., Barack Obama’s citizenship and legitimacy to run as presidential candidate.

Labor market effect. Notes: the graph shows the relationships between the respondent’s education and the sensitivity of his/her net income to migration according to the labor market channel, as a function of wether immigration is relatively skilled or unskilled. \(\frac {\hat {I}^{n}_{j}}{d\pi }\) represents the percentage change in individual income for a maginal change in π , the ratio of immigrants to natives

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Acknowledgements

Very useful comments were provided by Jens Hainmueller, Michael Hiscox, Jim Snyder, Cecilia Testa, and seminar audiences at the TOM (Transnationality of Migrants) meeting in Bruxelles, the TOM conference in Louvain-la-Neuve, the TOM conference in Venice, the INSIDE Immigration Workshop in Barcelona, the “Dynamics of Public Opinion on Immigration in Liberal Democracies” conference at the University of Texas at Austin, the 2009 MPSA meeting in Chicago, and the 2009 APSA meeting in Toronto. Anna Maria Mayda and Riccardo Puglisi thank the European Community for financial support received through Marie Curie Fellowships within the TOM project. This paper is produced as part of the CEPR project “Politics, Economics and Global Governance: The European Dimensions” funded by the European Commission under its Seventh Framework Programme for Research (Collaborative Project), Contract no. 217559. We would like to thank the anonymous referee and the editor for the helpful comments.

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Facchini, G., Mayda, A. & Puglisi, R. Illegal immigration and media exposure: evidence on individual attitudes. IZA J Develop Migration 7 , 14 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40176-017-0095-1

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Immigration to the United States: Recent Trends and Future Prospects +

Charles hirschman.

University of Washington

Almost 13 per cent of the American population is foreign born, and if the children of the foreign born are included, about 1 in 4 Americans can be counted as part of the recent immigrant community. Although there is lingering prejudice and popular fears of immigrants, there is growing evidence that, on balance, immigrants make a positive contribution to the American economy and society. There is little evidence that immigrants have an adverse impact on the wages and employment of native born Americans. Moreover, immigrants and their children are disproportionately represented in a broad variety of scientific and cultural fields.

1. Introduction

The United States is, once again, in the midst of an age of immigration. In 2010, there were 40 million foreign-born persons living in the United States ( Grieco et al. 2012 ). Of the 220 million international migrants in the world in 2010—defined as persons living outside their country of birth—almost one in five were residents in the United States ( UN Population Division 2013 ). An even larger number, upwards of 75 million persons in the United States—almost one quarter of the current resident American population— is part of the immigrant community, defined as foreign born and the children of the foreign born ( U.S. Bureau of the Census 2010 ). 1

In spite of lingering prejudice and discrimination against immigrants, most Americans are beginning to acknowledge the positive contributions of immigrants. These beliefs are partially rooted in the historical image of the United States as a ‘nation of immigrants.’ The story that America was populated by peoples seeking economic opportunity, fleeing injustice or oppression in their homeland, and hoping for a better life for their children has a strong grip on the American immigration. Moreover, there is a growing body of research that shows that most immigrants do assimilate to American society and that immigration has net positive impacts on the American economy, society, and culture.

In this paper, I survey the trends in immigration to the United States with a focus on the most recent period—the Post 1965 Wave of Immigration, named for the reforms in immigration law that were enacted in the late 1960s as part of the Civil Rights revolution. I also review recent research on the demographic, economic, social, and cultural impact of immigration on American society.

2. Trends in Immigration to the United States

Figure 1 shows the history of the absolute and relative levels of the foreign born population in the United States. The histogram—the solid bars—shows the numbers (in millions) of foreign born persons in the country from 1850 to 2012. The foreign born includes everyone who is born outside the United States, including students and workers residing here temporarily. This category also includes many undocumented immigrants—those residing in the country illegally. The curved line shows the ratio of foreign born persons to the total US population in each decennial census from 1850 to 2000 and the comparable figures for recent years from the American Community Survey.

Source: US Bureau of Census, Census of Population, 1850–2000 (in Gibson and Jung, 2006 ), and American Community Survey, 2010.

The absolute number of the foreign born population rose rapidly from the mid-19th century through the early decades of the 20th century—popularly known as the ‘Age of Mass Migration.’ With the cessation of large-scale immigration after 1924, the absolute numbers of foreign born declined to below 10 million by 1970. With the renewal of immigration in recent decades, the number of foreign born persons has risen dramatically and is currently around 40 million.

The visibility of the foreign born—at work, in schools, and in neighbourhoods—is measured by the proportion of foreign born to the total population, that is, the curved line in Figure 1 . It is to be noted that the contemporary presence of immigrants is actually less than it was in the early 20 th century. For most of the 19 th and early 20 th centuries, the foreign born constituted around 14 to 15 per cent of the American population. Then, during the middle decades of the 20 th century, the figure dropped precipitously to below 5 per cent in 1970. With the renewal of mass immigration after 1965, the percent foreign born is currently 13 per cent of the total population. While this figure is high relative to the period from 1950 to 1970, it is slightly below the proportion of foreign born for much of American history.

The ‘Post-1965 Immigration Wave,’ was named for the 1965 immigration law that repealed the ‘national origins quotas’ enacted in the 1920s. These quotas were considered discriminatory by the children and grandchildren of Southern and Eastern European immigrants, and the 1965 immigration legislation was part of the reforms of the Civil Rights era. The advocates of reform in the 1960s were not pushing for a major new wave of immigration; they expected a small increase in the number of arrivals from Italy, Greece, and a few other European countries, as families that were divided by the immigration restrictions of the 1920s were allowed to be reunited ( Reimrs 1985 : Chap. 3).

Family reunification and scarce occupational skills were the primary criteria for admission under the 1965 Act ( Keely 1979 ). The new preference system allowed highly skilled professionals, primarily doctors, nurses, and engineers from Asian countries, to immigrate and eventually to sponsor their families. About the same time, and largely independently of the 1965 Act, immigration from Latin America began to rise. Legal and undocumented migration from Mexico surged after a temporary farm worker programme, known as the Bracero Programme, ended in 1964 ( Massey, Durand and Malone 2002 ). There have also been major waves of immigration to the United States with the fall of regimes supported by American political and military interventions abroad, including Cuba, Vietnam, and Central America. Each of these streams of immigrant and refugee inflows has spawned secondary waves of immigration as family members have followed.

3. Characteristics of the Post-1965 Wave of Immigrants

Most of the immigrants who arrived from 1880 to 1920 during the Age of Mass Migration were from Southern and Eastern Europe, including Italy, Germany, Poland, and Russia. Many of these ‘new’ immigrants in the early 20 th century were considered to be distinctly different from the older stock of white Americans in terms of language, religion, and in their potential for assimilation into American society. Popular opposition to immigration in the early 20 th century led to the laws of the 1920s that sharply restricted immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. There were much smaller waves of immigration from China and Japan, but even stronger opposition ended Asian immigration in the late 19 th and early 20 th century.

When the doors to immigration were opened again in the years after 1965, only small numbers of Europeans arrived. The major regions of origin in the Post-1965 Wave of Immigration are Latin America and Asia. More than 11 million—about 30 per cent of all immigrants (foreign born)—are from Mexico, one of the nearest neighbours of the United States. Another 20 per cent of immigrants are from other countries in Latin America, with the largest numbers from Central America and the Caribbean. Migrants from Puerto Rico are domestic migrants, not immigrants, since Puerto Rico is an American territory and all Puerto Ricans are American citizens at birth.

About one quarter of the foreign-born are from Asia, and the relative share of Asian immigrants has risen in recent years. One of the hallmarks of contemporary Asian immigration is its diversity—almost every country in Asia is represented in the American immigrant population. The largest Asian immigrant communities in the U. S. are from China, India, and the Philippines, but there are also considerable numbers from Vietnam, Korea, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand.

In the 1970s and 1980s, most ‘new immigrants’ settled in the West and East coast states, and a few other selected states, including Texas, Florida, and Illinois. About 40 per cent of all immigrants lived in California and New York. In the 1990s and 2000s, immigrants increasingly began settling in new destinations including smaller towns in the Midwest and Southeast. The majority of immigrants still live in California, New York, and other traditional destinations, but industries are attracting immigrant labour to many other regions. In addition to the high tech sectors and universities that attract highly skilled immigrants, less skilled immigrants are drawn to agriculture, food processing, and manufacturing industries that are often shunned by native born workers.

The distribution of education among recent immigrants to the United States is bimodal. The largest group of immigrants, particularly those from Mexico and Central America, has less education, on average, than the native-born American population. Less education, however, is not equivalent to unskilled labour. Many immigrants without a high school degree are able to work in the skilled construction industry, nursing homes caring for the elderly, and in the service sectors in restaurants, hotels, and gardening.

At the other end of the educational continuum are the highly educated immigrant streams from Taiwan, India, Iran, and many African countries. Almost half of Asian immigrants have a university degree compared to only a third of native born Americans. Many of these highly skilled immigrants fill key niches in the high tech sector, higher education, and many professional fields.

4. Popular Fears of Too Much Immigration

Existing alongside the pride of having immigrant grandparents (or great-grandparents) in the ‘nation of immigrants,’ many Americans fear that the United States has more immigrants than the country can absorb and assimilate. There are widespread popular beliefs that immigrants take jobs that would otherwise go to native born Americans and that the wages of native born workers are depressed by the presence of immigrant workers. Beyond the economic argument, many Americans also think that the presence of immigrants, especially large numbers of immigrants from ‘third world’ countries, are a threat to American values, culture, and institutions ( Bouvier 1992 ; Brimelow 1995 ; Huntington 2004 ). These sentiments have given rise to an anti-immigrant lobby that includes political leaders, TV and radio talk-show pundits, social movement organisations, including public interest organisations that publish reports and policy briefs, as well as unauthorised militia groups that patrol the U.S. Mexican border, such as the ‘Minutemen’.

Neither the presence of large numbers of immigrants nor the exaggerated claims about the negative impact of immigration are new phenomena. In 1751, Benjamin Franklin complained about the Germans in Pennsylvania and their reluctance to learn English ( Archdeacon 1983 : 20; Jones 1992 : 39–40). Based on a campaign of fear about the political dangers of unchecked immigration, primarily Irish Catholics, the ‘Know-Nothing’Party elected six governors, dominated several state legislatures, and sent a bloc of representatives to Congress in 1855. During World War I, Americans who wanted to retain their German-American identity were forced to be ‘100 percent Americans’ and to give up their language and culture ( Higham 1988 : Chap. 8).

In the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, Chinese and Japanese migrants who worked as railroad and agricultural labourers were targeted by nativist groups who feared that Asian immigrants would harm the economic status of native workers and contaminate the ‘racial purity’ of the nation ( Hing 1993 : 22). The passage of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was the first major step toward a closed society. After the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, Japanese migrants became a new source of cheap labour on the West coast and Hawaii. Japanese immigration was targeted by the same groups that opposed Chinese immigrants.

Southern and Eastern European groups also faced an increasingly hostile context of reception as their numbers swelled at the turn of the twentieth century. A number of formal organisations sprang up among old line New England elites to campaign against the continued immigration of ‘undesirables’ from Europe ( Higham 1988 ; Jones 1992 : Chap. 9). After a long political struggle, Congress passed restrictive laws in the early 1920s that stopped almost all immigration except from Northwestern Europe.

5. Do Immigrants Assimilate into American Society?

In spite of the fears that immigrants are resistant to learning English and refuse to join the American mainstream, there is a large body of social science and historical research which concludes that immigrants have, by and large, assimilated to American society ( Alba 1990 , Alba and Nee 2003 ; Duncan and Duncan 1968 ; Lieberson 1980 ). This does not mean that assimilation was painless, automatic, or immediate. For the first generation of immigrants who arrived as adults, the processes of linguistic, cultural, and social change were painful and usually incomplete. Immigrants tend to settle in ethnic enclaves, prefer to speak their mother tongue, and gravitate to places of worship and social events that provide cultural continuity with their origins ( Handlin 1973 ; Portes and Rumbaut 2006 ). Many immigrants do learn English and find employment in the general economy, but few feel completely part of their new society. In the early decades of the 20 th century, evidence pointed to the slow and incomplete assimilation of the then ‘new’ immigrants ( Pagnini and Morgan 1990 ).

With the passage of time, and especially following the emergence of the second generation, there was unmistakable evidence of assimilation among the descendants of early 20 th century European immigrants. Acculturated through their attendance at American schools, the children of immigrants did not share the ambivalence of their immigrant parents. The second generation spoke fluent English and was eager to join the American mainstream. By all measures, including socio-economic status, residential mobility, and intermarriage, they left behind the ethnic world of their immigrant parents ( Alba and Nee 2003 ; Lieberson 1980 ). By the 1950s, patterns of suburbanisation broke down ethnic neighborhoods and intermarriage became more common ( Alba and Nee 2003 ; Lieberson and Waters 1988 ).

Although it is widely assumed that immigrants in the Post-1965 Immigration Wave are less likely to assimilate than those who arrived in the early 20 th century, there is growing evidence that the new immigrants, especially their children, are doing remarkably well ( Alba and Nee 2003 ; Kasinitz et al. 2008 ). On average, second generation immigrants are less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to attend college than the average native born American ( Hirschman 2001 ; White and Glick 2009 ). Intermarriage is also common: recent research estimates that one-third to one-half of second generation Hispanics and Asians marry outside of their community ( Duncan and Trejo 2007 ; Min and Kim 2009 ). The children of contemporary immigrants are on track for assimilation and upward mobility at about the same pace as the descendants of earlier waves of immigration from Europe.

6. The Impact of Immigration on America

There are widespread popular beliefs, including many influential voices within public policy circles, which argue that immigration is harmful to the economic welfare of the country, especially to native born Americans ( Borjas 1994 ; Bouvier 1992 ; Briggs 1984 ; Brimelow 1995 ). The central claim is that immigrants, because they are willing to work for lower wages, take jobs from native born American workers. Competition from immigrant workers is expected to depress wages, especially in the low-skilled labour market ( Borjas 1989 ). Finally, immigrants are thought to be an economic burden because they disproportionately receive public benefits, such as health care, schooling, and welfare without paying their fair share of taxes. These claims, however, are not supported by empirical evidence.

The definitive statement on the economic consequences of immigration was the 1997 report of the National Research Council (NRC) panel on the demographic and economic impacts of immigration, which drew on the theoretical and empirical research conducted by leading specialists in labour economics and public finance ( Smith and Edmonston 1997 ; 1998 , also see Card 1990 ; 2005 ). The major conclusion of the NRC report was that the net effects of immigration on the American economy were very modest. Immigration does expand labour supply and may increase competition for jobs and lower wages for native workers who are substitutes for immigrants, but immigration also expands total production (national income) and increases the incomes that accrue to native born workers who are complements to immigrants ( Smith and Edmondson 1997 : Chap. 4). Although some native born workers may compete for the same jobs as immigrants, many more may be complements to immigrants. This means that the arrival of unskilled immigrant labour may ‘push up’, rather than ‘push out’, many native born workers ( Haines 2000 : 202; Lieberson 1980 : Chap. 10). Moreover, many native born workers have direct or indirect income from capital through their savings, ownership of property, and as recipients of pension programmes.

The most likely reason for a lack of empirical support for the presumed negative impact of immigration is the questionable assumption that the only impact of additional workers (immigrants) on the labour market is through wage competition. The presence of immigrants has broader effects on economic growth, both locally and nationally, that leads to rising wage levels for native born workers. Among the potential mechanisms are increased national savings, entrepreneurship and small business development, a faster rate of inventive activity and technological innovation, and increasing economies of scale, both in the production and consumer markets ( Carter and Sutch 1999 ). There is a long-standing hypothesis in economic history that high levels of immigration stimulates economic growth by increasing demand for housing, urban development, and other amenities ( Easterlin 1968 ). A recent study found that immigration provided the necessary labour supply for the rapid growth of manufacturing during the American Industrial Revolution from 1880 to 1920 ( Hirschman and Mogford 2009 ).

Another major economic issue addressed by the 1997 NRC report was the impact of immigration on the governmental fiscal system—the balance between taxes paid and the value of government services received ( Clune 1998 ; Garvey and Espendshade 1998 ; Lee and Miller 1998 ; Smith and Edmonston 1997 : Chaps. 6 & 7). The NRC researchers report that the average native born household in New Jersey and California pays more in state and local taxes as a result of the presence of immigrants ( Smith and Edmonston 1997 : Chap. 6). These results are largely determined by the lower wages of immigrants and the demographic composition of immigrant households, which tend to be younger and have more children than the native born population. The largest component of local and state government budgets is schooling, and immigrant households, with more children per household than native born households, are disproportionately beneficiaries of state support for schooling.

Despite potential imbalances in the net transfer of revenues at the local and state level, an accounting of the federal fiscal system shows that immigrants (and their descendants) contribute more in taxes than they receive in benefits ( Smith and Edmonston 1997 : Chap. 7). Just as the age structure of immigrant households makes them disproportionately the beneficiaries of public education, the relative youth of immigrants also means they are less likely be beneficiaries of Social Security and Medicare (and Medicaid for many of the institutionalised elderly). Immigrants also help to relieve the per-capita fiscal burden of native born for the national debt, national security, and public goods, which are major federal expenditures that are only loosely tied to population size. An intergenerational accounting that counts the future taxes paid by the children of immigrants concludes that immigration helps, rather than hurts, the nation’s fiscal balance ( Lee and Miller 1998 ; Smith and Edmonston 1997 ; Chap. 7).

6.1 The Role of Immigration on the Advancement of Science, Technology and Higher Education

Scientific progress is a major source of modern economic growth, increasing longevity and other features of modern development that enhance the quality of life in the United States. It is frequently claimed that American economic development has been fostered by government investments in scientific and technological innovation in the industrial sector, as well as in universities and research institutes. How might immigration also affect scientific progress? Perhaps the most direct link is the migration of scientists from other countries and the high educational attainment of immigrants and their children.

Albert Einstein, perhaps the most eminent American scientist of the 20 th century, was a refugee from Nazi Germany. There are many other examples of distinguished scientists, researchers, academics, and entrepreneurs who arrived in the United States as students who pursued their talents in American universities and/or industry, including Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller, and Hans Bethe, the fathers of the atomic age, Elias Zerhouni, former director of the National Institutes of Health, and Andrew Grove, Jerry Yang, and Sergey Brin, the engineering entrepreneurs who led the American transition to the digital age. From 1990 to 2004, over one-third of US scientists who had received Nobel Prizes were foreign born ( Wulf 2006 ; also see Smith and Edmonston 1977 : 384–385).

The impact of immigration on the development of science in the United States is more than the story of a relatively open door for immigrants who are exceptionally talented scientists and engineers. Over the last four decades, American universities have played an important role in training immigrants and the children of immigrants to become scientists. Foreign students have become increasingly central to American higher education, particularly in graduate education in engineering and the sciences. After graduating with advanced degrees from American universities, many foreign students return to their home countries, but a significant share is attracted to employment opportunities in American universities, laboratories, and industries. Many of the foreign students who have become permanent residents or US citizens go on to make important contributions to the development of American science and engineering.

Several recent studies have found that foreign-born scientists and engineers are playing a critical role in in American universities, laboratories, and scientific industries ( Stephan and Levin 2007 ; Sana 2010 ). Foreign-born scientists and engineers are also over-represented among members of elected honorific societies such as the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences, and among the authors of highly cited academic papers ( Stephan and Levin 2007 ). During the last decades of the twentieth century, immigrant entrepreneurs formed a significant contingent of all founders of US high-technology start-ups, particularly in Silicon Valley ( Saxenian 2001 ). One recent study estimates that one in four technology firms started in the United States between 1995 and 2005 was founded by at least one foreign-born entrepreneur ( Wadwha et al. 2007 ).

6.2 The Impact of Immigrants on the Evolution of American Institutions

All other things being equal, most societies, communities, organisations and cultures tend to resist change, especially from outside sources. The truism that ‘people prefer that which is familiar’ is reinforced by persons with authority, power, and status, who generally shape cultural expectations to revere conformity more than innovation. This pattern, an ‘ideal type’ to be sure, is especially common in traditional rural areas, among multi-generational families, and in religious and cultural organisations.

There are, of course, many exceptions to this pattern, especially during eras of rapid technological and social change, wartime, and other times of catastrophe. The simple proposition of cultural continuity helps to explain the generally conservative nature of intergenerational socialisation and the ubiquity of ethnocentrism—beliefs that value insiders and traditional culture more than outsiders. In traditional (and in many modern) societies, immigrants are feared because they might potentially challenge the existing social arrangements as well as familiar cultural patterns.

All things have not been equal during much of American history. The United States has received about 75 million immigrants since record-keeping began in 1820. This relatively open door was due to a confluence of interests, both external and internal. As modernisation spread throughout the Old World during the 18 th and 19 th centuries, the (relatively) open frontier beckoned the landless and others seeking economic betterment. These patterns culminated in the early 20 th century, when more than one million immigrants arrived annually—a level that is only being rivaled by contemporary levels of immigration. American economic and political institutions also gained from immigration. Immigrant settlement helped to secure the frontier as well as to provide labour for nation-building projects, including transportation networks of roads, canals, and railroads. During the era of industrialisation, immigrant labour provided a disproportionate share of workers for the dirty and dangerous jobs in mining and manufacturing ( Hirschman and Mogford 2009 ).

In spite of the national tradition of mass immigration, new arrivals have rarely received a welcome reception. The conservative backlash against immigrants has been a perennial theme of American history. During the Age of Mass Migration, the negative reaction against immigrants was not simply a response from the parochial masses, but also a project led by conservative intellectuals. Long before immigration restrictions were implemented in the 1920s, there was a particularly virulent campaign against the ‘new’ immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Most of these immigrants were Catholics and Jews—religious and cultural traditions that were thought to be in conflict with the traditional ascendancy of white Protestants of English ancestry.

As most Northeastern and Midwestern cities became dominated by immigrants (both first and second generations) in the late 19 th century, many elite old-stock American families and communities created barriers to protect their ‘aristocratic’ status and privileges against newcomers ( Higham 1988 ). Residential areas became ‘restricted,’ college fraternities and sororities limited their membership, and many social clubs and societies only allowed those with the right pedigrees and connections to be admitted ( Baltzell 1964 ). Barriers to employment for minorities, especially Jews, were part of the culture of corporate law firms and elite professions ( Auerbach 1975 : Chap. 2). In the early 20 th century, many elite private universities were notorious for their quotas for Jewish students and their refusal to hire Jews and other minorities ( Baltzell 1964 : 336; Karabel 2006 ). In some cases, these quotas persisted until the 1960s.

Given this history, how were immigrants and their children able to make such impressive achievements to American science, arts, and culture? Part of the solution to this puzzle is that immigrants, and especially their children, were pulled into self-employment and new sectors of the economy where there was less discrimination. As noted above, prestigious organisations that celebrated tradition tended to be closed to outsiders. The early 20 th century was an era of rapid demographic, economic, and technological change. Rapid social change creates more flexibility and openness for outsiders to be absorbed into mainstream institutions.

The market for cultural and artistic performances was greatly expanded with the growth of cities in the early 20 th century. A significant share of the urban population, the potential consumers of art and culture, were of immigrant stock. The most important development of this era was the motion picture industry—a new form of the performing arts. In the 1920s, immigrant risk-takers, primarily Eastern European Jewish immigrants, transformed the fledgling motion picture industry with the development of large Hollywood studios. Although the new Hollywood moguls sought to create movies that appealed to mass audiences and ignored any hint of ethnicity or religion, their presence may have minimised traditional prejudices and discrimination among those who worked in Hollywood. Irving Howe characterised the openness of the performing arts (and sports) to talented outsiders:

… “the (entertainment industry) brushed aside claims of rank and looked only for the immediate promise of talent. Just as blacks would later turn to baseball and basketball knowing that here at least their skin color counted for less than their skills, so in the early 1900s, young Jews broke into vaudeville because here too, people asked not, who are you? but, what can you do?”

This openness is reinforced in fields and professions where talent and accomplishment are clearly recognised and visible, including professional sports and universities. Prior to World War II, competition was restricted in many institutions with barriers to admission and hiring. Professional baseball was closed to African Americans and elite universities restricted the admission of Jews and other minorities. In spite of these tendencies, many American institutions have become more open and meritocratic over the 20 th century. Baseball and other professional sports were integrated before most other institutions, including public school education. In recent decades, American professional sports have become more global, with a growing participation of talented international players. This trend is driven, in large part, by competition. Sports fans want winning teams, and large audiences increase revenues. The owners and management of sports teams respond to market pressures by recruitment of talented players from other countries. Similar processes are at work in universities and scientific organisations. More talented researchers generate more grants, more patents, and more commercial applications of scientific discoveries. The global search for talented graduate students and researchers by elite American universities and research organisations is driven by competitive pressures that have accelerated in recent decades. Other fields where merit is relatively easy to measure, such as in classical musical performance, have also become part of a global employment market.

There are similar competitive pressures in many American corporations and business for talented employees, but there are certainly wide variations depending on the pace of technological change, international market competition, and the ability to measure merit. Traditional manufacturing sectors of the economy, automobiles for example, may focus more on continuity, advertising, and efficiency than technological innovation. Other sectors, such as the electronic and computing industry are more at the forefront of technological innovation and international competition. It seems likely that these more competitive sectors, perhaps exemplified by Silicon Valley, would be the most meritocratic and willing to hire outsiders—immigrants and foreign students who have the necessary skills.

The same processes of competition certainly affected the development of Hollywood, Broadway, and many other American performing and cultural arts. Audience preferences may have tended toward familiar cultural content, but there was undoubtedly strong market pressure for ‘quality’, however defined. There was also considerable room for innovation in artistic and cultural performance in a pluralistic society with relatively few cultural touchstones. Immigrants and their children played important roles in the development of culture and art in 20 th century America, just as they have in science and academic institutions.

My contention is that the presence of immigrants and their offspring has helped to ‘push’ American institutions in the direction of increasing openness and meritocracy. This has not always been a smooth or conflict-free process. When Jewish students appeared in large numbers in leading American universities in the early 20 th century, they were deemed rate-busters who upset the traditional college student culture, which de-emphasised too much study or serious scholarly interests.

The growing number of talented Jewish students, mostly second generation immigrants, certainly raised the standards at universities that did not discriminate. As universities began to compete for faculty and graduate students during the post-World War II era, the quota restrictions eventually disappeared ( Karabel 2006 ). Elite colleges and universities still retain legacies of non-merit based admission systems, including programmes to privilege children of alumni. There is also evidence that Asian American students have not been admitted in numbers proportional to their test scores ( Espenshade and Chung 2005 ), but these current practices are only a shadow of those of earlier times. The point is not that universities are completely meritocratic, but that they have become more meritocratic with increasing competition and acceptance of talented ‘outsiders.’

Greater openness to hiring and promotion on the basis of merit has become an integral part of many American institutions in recent years. The reputation of the United States as a land of opportunity for those with ambition and ability—a theme in many Hollywood movies—made the country a beacon for prospective immigrants. In addition to raising the international stature of the United States, the participation of talented immigrants and their children has likely made American scientific and cultural institutions more successful.

7. Conclusions

Contemporary immigration to the United States, upwards of one million new arrivals per year, is not exceptional. In fact, the relative share of immigrants—about 13 per cent—is a bit lower than the 14 to 15 per cent that characterised much of American history prior to the 1920s. Absorbing large numbers of newcomers has costs as well as benefits. The costs are immediately apparent, but some of the benefits take longer to appear. Schools, hospitals, and social service agencies may have to arrange for translation services and other special programmes for immigrants. But most of the costs of these adjustments are paid by immigrants and their families. Immigrants have given up the familiarity of home in their quest for more rewarding careers and greater opportunities for their children. Immigrants must also contend with a receiving society that is ambivalent, and sometimes hostile, to their presence.

Contemporary immigrants do adapt and assimilate to American society—probably as fast as earlier waves of immigrants. Assimilation is not instantaneous, and, for adult immigrants, the process is never complete. But for their native born children, and for those who arrive in the United States as young children, assimilation is a natural process that reflects immersion in American schools and culture.

Immigrants and their children, however, are not the same as native born Americans. In addition to the many obvious characteristics, such as language, religion, and cuisine, they generally differ on social and educational characteristics. For the contemporary period, immigrants are over-represented both among college graduates and those with less than 12 years of schooling relative to native born Americans ( Portes and Rumbaut 2006 : Chap. 4). Immigrants are also not representative of the society from which they come ( Feliciano 2005a ; 2005b ; Model 2008 ). In contrast to popular images, immigrants are not drawn from the least successful ranks of their home societies, but are generally well above average in terms of their education and other skills.

Perhaps the most important contribution of immigrants is their children. Many immigrants have made enormous sacrifices for their children’s welfare, including the decision to settle in the United States. Immigrant parents often have to work in menial jobs, multiple jobs, and in occupations well below the status they would have earned if they had remained at home. These sacrifices have meaning because immigrant parents believe that their children will have better educational and occupational opportunities in the United States than in their homelands. Immigrant parents push their children to excel by reminding them of their own sacrifices.

These high expectations for the children of immigrants generally lead to high motivations for academic and worldly success ( Hao and Bonstead-Burns 1998 ). A large body of research shows that the children of immigrants do remarkably well in American schools. Holding constant their socio-economic status, the second generation obtains higher grades in school and above average results on standardised tests, is less likely to drop out of high school, and is more likely to go to college than the children of native born Americans ( Fuligni and Witknow 2004 ; Perreira, Harris and Lee 2006 ).

In addition to measures of socio-economic assimilation, immigrants and their children are over-represented in a broad range of rare achievements, including Nobel Prize winners, top scientists, American performing artists, and other contributors to the American creative arts. They have broadened our cultural outlook and sometimes, have even defined American culture through literature, music and art.

Compared with other societies, the United States is generally regarded as unusually competitive and places a high premium on progress and innovation. This dynamic characteristic may well arise from the presence of immigrants and on the evolution of American institutions and identity. The size and selectivity of the immigrant community means that immigrants (and/or their children) are competing for entry into colleges, jobs, and access to prestigious positions and institutions. Not all institutions have been open to outsiders on an equal footing with insiders. In particular, high status organisations often give preference to persons with the right connections and social pedigree. But institutions that opened their doors to talented outsiders—immigrants and their children—probably gained a competitive advantage. Over time, greater openness and meritocratic processes may have become a force that shaped the evolution of American institutions in the arts, sports, science, and some sectors of business. In turn, the participation of outsiders may have reinforced a distinctive American character and culture that values not ‘who are you?’ but, ‘what can you do?’

Because immigrants have to constantly work at learning the system, they are intensely curious about American culture. For the most talented, this leads to a level of creativity beyond the normal boundaries that has left its imprint on American music, theater, dance, film, and many other realms of artistic endeavour. Finally, American institutions – schools, universities, businesses, sports teams, and even symphony orchestras, are meritocratic and seek talent wherever they can find it. The United States is a competitive society that values progress and success. This dynamic characteristic has partly been created through the presence of immigrants, which has pushed the country to value skills and ability over social pedigree.

The fear of cultural conservatives is that immigrants will change American character and identity. Yet, the definition of American identity is elusive. Unlike many other societies, the United States does not have an identity tied to an ancient lineage. Given the two wars against the British in early American history (in 1776 and 1812), the founders of the new American republic did not make English origins the defining trait of American identity; rather it was acceptance of the Enlightenment ideas expressed in the founding documents of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights ( Gleason 1980 ; Vecoli 1966). Even though these ideals were belied by the continuing stain of slavery, a civic identity rather than ancestry has been the distinctive feature of American ‘ peoplehood ’ from the very start. This trait combined with jus soli (birthright citizenship) 2 has slowed, if not stopped, efforts to define Americans solely on the basis of ancestral origins. Another reason for the broad definition of American identity is that the overwhelming majority of the American population, including white Americans, is descended from 19 th and 20 th century immigrants. Demographic estimates suggest that less than one-third of the American population in the late 20 th century were descended from the 18 th century American population ( Edmonston and Passel 1994 : 61, Gibson 1992 ).

Yet, there have been recurrent struggles to redefine American identity in terms of ancestry. The first naturalisation law passed by Congress in 1790 limited citizenship to whites. The broadening of American citizenship to include African Americans, American Indians, and Asian immigrants were epic battles. The short-lived, but remarkably successful ‘Know-Nothing’ political movement called itself the American Party to highlight the ancestral origins of its adherents. In the late 19 th century, as new immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were pouring in, some old stock Americans founded organisations such as the Sons of the American Revolution, Daughters of the American Revolution, and similar groups to celebrate their ancestral pedigrees and to distance themselves from recent immigrants. The national origin quotas of the 1920s were a clear victory for those who feared dilution of the white English Protestant composition of the American population. The current anti-immigrant sentiment also expresses a fear that American identity will be lost, yet it is unclear that a universal contemporary American identity exists. Although the English language is considered to be central, English Protestant ancestry is not emphasised. There is too much diversity, even within the white population, to focus on specific ancestral origins.

In an often quoted remark, Oscar Handlin, the famous historian, observed that after searching for the place of immigrants in American history, that immigrants are American history. The American experiment in nation building is, in large part, the story of how immigrants have been absorbed into American society and how immigrants have enlarged and transformed America. Immigrants settled the frontier; they participated in constructing canals, roads and railroads, and contributed significant manpower in many American wars. Immigrants provided much of the manufacturing labour for the American industrial revolution as well as a disproportionate share of the contemporary highly skilled scientists and engineers that are central to the modern electronic and biomedical economy. Most interestingly, immigrants and the children of immigrants have been among the most important creative artists who have shaped the development of the cultural arts, including movies, theatre, dance, and music.

Immigration is, perhaps, the most distinctive feature of American identity. Immigration has had a disproportionate effect on the demographic size, ethnic diversity, culture, and character of American society. Immigrants and their children have assimilated to America, but they have also shaped American institutions in ways that have allowed strangers to participate on a relatively open playing field.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the Malaysian Population and Family Development Board for the invitation to participate in the conference, the Malaysian American Commission for Educational Exchange for a Fulbright Fellowship to Malaysia, the Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya for hosting me as a Visiting Fulbright Professor, and Associate Professor Tey Nai Peng for his advice on my conference paper.

+ An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Conference on Migration, Urbanisation and Development at the University of Malaya, 8 July 2013.

1 The foreign-born refers to all persons who are born outside the United States or a United States territory. The Census Bureau defines the native born (the complement of the foreign born) as persons who are American citizens at birth. The terms foreign born and immigrants are used interchangeably here, but this is not technically true because many of the foreign born are in the United States as temporary workers or students.

2 The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution (adopted in 1868) defines citizenship as consisting of: “All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Subsequent Supreme Court rulings have interpreted the citizenship clause to include the native born children of foreign nationals.

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• 19 Jun 2019

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Do Immigrants and Immigration Help the Economy?

With immigration dominating politics and voter concerns, bu economist’s research shows immigration boosts local wages and that having neighbors of foreign descent can reduce prejudice.

Tarek Hassan, a BU College of Arts & Sciences professor of economics, has found that an influx of immigrants can energize local economies and wages—but that not everyone benefits equally.

Andrew Thurston

Jackie ricciardi.

When Americans mark their presidential election ballots later this year, immigration will be top of mind—it’s the nation’s number one issue, according to pollster Gallup . And one of the toughest talkers on the topic is former president and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. He’s built his political career on calls to secure the border and defend America against what he says are immigration’s dangers, warning of shrinking wages and stretched benefits programs . “When you have millions of people coming in,” he recently told a crowd in Michigan , “they’re going to take your jobs.” 

Immigrants stealing work from existing residents is a well-worn contention—with a history stretching back at least 100 years right up to present-day accusations that Tyson Foods could replace American workers with immigrant labor. But it’s also a false one, according to Boston University economist Tarek Hassan , whose recent studies have shown immigrants actually help fuel local economies by sparking innovation and driving up wages. The effects of a migrant influx can last for decades, too, enhancing a region’s attractiveness to foreign investors and opening long-term export opportunities, even 100 years later. Oftentimes, when immigrants move into an area, so do native workers, drawn by the promise of an invigorated economy. 

In one recent paper, Hassan, a BU College of Arts & Sciences professor of economics, also showed that living near people from other countries can shift native views on people of foreign descent, decreasing hostility and prejudice, while boosting empathy and knowledge. Residents who live alongside those people may also be less likely to vote for political candidates who demonize them.

But there are important details that complicate the picture—at least from an economics perspective. Hassan’s research has shown that not everyone benefits the same way from a rush of migration, and that may strike a chord with some of the millions of voters who want to stem the tide. Despite the overall positive effects to a community, the flow of new residents does nothing to boost the wages of existing workers who don’t have a high school diploma. And the education and skill level of migrants matters, too: more education equals a more positive economic effect.

“The headline finding is that immigrants are good for local economic growth and, in particular, educated migrants are doing a lot of that,” says Hassan. “At the same time, the data point to why some people might have problems with this. It’s a lopsided story where the immigration we’ve experienced in the last 40 years has been disproportionately benefiting the more educated local population. We’re trying to add some facts to the debate.”

Immigration’s Impact on Economic Growth

Hassan’s family story is one of migration—of crossing borders and navigating shifting national boundaries. “I come from a family with a rather complex migration history,” says Hassan. His father was an immigrant to Germany from Egypt, his mother a refugee from East to West Germany. Hassan was raised in Germany, but moved to the United States for graduate school and has now lived here for nearly 20 years. “You have to go back many generations to find somebody who was actually born in the same country they died in,” he says of his family. “But I think that’s true for a large chunk of the population.”

He admits he finds the national debate on immigration frustrating. “There’s very little interest in nuanced information—on both sides of the debate. There’s this view among some people that all immigration is good and should be encouraged, and there’s this other view that all immigration is terrible. There’s not much interest in listening to each other.”

With his research, he hopes to foster a more informed conversation.

In a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research , Hassan and his colleagues examined decades of US migration data to look at the impact of new arrivals on economic growth, wage levels, and innovation, which they measured through the number of new patents filed in a particular area. More new ideas, he says, generally means more new businesses and products: “We find that when you have 10,000 extra immigrants arriving in a given US county, the number of patents filed per capita in that county dramatically increases, by something like 25 percent.” It was an effect that rippled out as far as 150 miles. The research team also estimated that, since 1965, migration of foreign nationals to the US may have contributed to an additional 5 percent growth in wages. They’re currently preparing the findings for journal publication.

“More immigrants creates more economic growth,” says Hassan. “And because it creates more economic growth locally, it raises the wages of the people who are already there.”

More immigrants creates more economic growth. And because it creates more economic growth locally, it raises the wages of the people who are already there. Tarek Hassan

In an earlier paper , Hassan had looked at migration’s impact over an even longer term: 100 years or more. With an international research team, he studied how the pull of one area for migrants from the same country could help attract foreign investment to that region for years afterward.

“You can still see today that places where Germans settled within the Midwest 100 years ago are much better at attracting foreign investment from Germany than places that didn’t see that migration,” says Hassan. The same is true for communities that had a concentration of Chinese or Polish migration, for example. “Ethnic diversity in that sense is really good for the ability of local firms to conduct business abroad, to both receive and make foreign investments.”

Immigration Fears

But what about those whose wages aren’t getting an upgrade or who— to quote Trump —fear a wave of immigrants may threaten their way of life, bringing in “languages that nobody in this country has ever heard of” or “poisoning the blood of our country”?

“On average, the people who are most scared of immigration are typically the people who don’t actually live in very ethnically diverse places,” says Hassan.

In a study published in the American Economic Review in February, Hassan and his fellow researchers investigated how having neighbors of foreign descent, specifically Arab Muslims, shaped prejudices and attitudes. They surveyed more than 5,000 Americans about their contact with Arab Muslims and knowledge of Islam, and sifted through data on migration, charitable donations, implicit prejudice, and support for Trump and the so-called “Muslim ban.” Hassan and his colleagues found that living among a large Arab Muslim population decreased prejudice, reduced support for policies targeting Arab Muslims, and increased knowledge of Islam and Arab Muslims—it even resulted in people making more donations to charities supporting their neighbors’ ancestral countries.

“Long-term exposure to people with a given ethnic background makes you more informed about them, maybe makes you like them more,” says Hassan. “It also increases political support for concerns these minorities might have. It traces a lot of xenophobia to people who don’t interact with people with foreign ancestry.”

But he says his findings on which immigrants spark the biggest economic impact, and which domestic workers benefit from that boost, should perhaps prompt a discussion about where to focus immigration policies. President Joe Biden has suggested expanding access to family-based immigration , for example, but that might not be the best economic choice, according to Hassan.

“One thing to think about, particularly given our findings about the effects of high- versus low-skilled migration,” he says, “is whether it’s worth having a debate about how much of migration should be family-based versus skill-based.”

Hassan’s National Bureau of Economic Research working paper was published with Konrad Burchardi of Stockholm University, Thomas Chaney of University of Southern California, Stephen Terry of University of Michigan, and Lisa Tarquinio (CAS’11, Pardee’11, GRS’21) of Western University; the paper on migrants and foreign investment was published with Burchardi and Chaney; and the American Economic Review paper was published with Leonardo Bursztyn of University of Chicago, Chaney, and Aakaash Rao of Harvard University.

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Andrew Thurston is originally from England, but has grown to appreciate the serial comma and the Red Sox, while keeping his accent (mostly) and love of West Ham United. He joined BU in 2007, and is the editor of the University’s research news site, The Brink ; he was formerly director of alumni publications. Before joining BU, he edited consumer and business magazines, including for corporations, nonprofits, and the UK government. His work has won awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, the In-House Agency Forum, Folio: , and the British Association of Communicators in Business. Andrew has a bachelor’s degree in English and related literature from the University of York. Profile

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Jackie Ricciardi is a staff photojournalist at BU Today and Bostonia  magazine. She has worked as a staff photographer at newspapers that include the Augusta Chronicle  in Augusta, Ga., and at Seacoast Media Group in Portsmouth, N.H., where she was twice named New Hampshire Press Photographer of the Year. Profile

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Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 4 comments on Do Immigrants and Immigration Help the Economy?

This article misses the point of what the problem with immigration is.

Whatever one may think of legal immigration – in a democracy we can debate the pros and cons of different immigration policies regarding legal immigration – the thing that really angers people – the actual tax paying citizens of every color and ethnicity, who are already here – is the blatant violation of US immigration law by the US government itself and thew massive problems that violation is creating! Specifically by the Biden administration which has out done every other presidency in the amount of lawlessness it has facilitated regarding this issue.

This administration violates the core principle of democracy where supposedly the citizens of the country consent to what the government does. That contract is being grossly violated by definition when the Biden administration not only does not enforce BUT blatantly subverts immigration law on a scale never seen in US history. The numbers speak for themselves – 6 -8 million have illegally come here since Biden took over, easily a record.

The incredible numbers of people walking across the border is causing massive problems in this country with human trafficking, illegal drugs like fentanyl coming through the border which has caused unprecedented number of overdose deaths to the tune of about 100k per year and a huge strain on resources in communities all across the country – many of them with large homeless and low income populations as it is. That is a total outrage.

To talk about immigration without distinguishing between lawful immigration and the 6 -8 million who have illegally jumped the border since Biden took over is gaslighting at its finest.

It is no wonder this issue has become one of the top issues in US politics. It is the gaslighting by Biden and the media that tells people: “The problems you’re seeing with your own eyes, are made up by racist conservatives”, “the border is secure”, “immigrants built this country”, “diversity is our strength” and on and on with the dumb slogans – that totally dismisses the very real problems that unlimited illegal immigration is creating, that is what infuriates people.

I also believe that this article and the research in question misses the point, but exactly what point is missed is where we differ. While everyone is entitled to their opinion on legal immigration policies, it’s crucial to ensure that arguments are grounded in accurate information and logical reasoning. Let’s break down your commentary point by point:

-Blaming the Biden Administration for Record Illegal Immigration: ~The claim that the Biden administration facilitated record levels of illegal immigration lacks context. Immigration trends are influenced by various factors, including global events, economic conditions, and policies that precede the current administration. ~ It’s important to consider the historical context of immigration patterns and the complexities of migration, rather than solely attributing them to one administration.

-Violation of Democracy and Government Consent: ~While it’s valid to expect a government to uphold and enforce laws, it’s an oversimplification to equate every immigration issue as a violation of democratic principles. ~Immigration policies often involve a balance between national security, humanitarian considerations (such as the prima facie asylum cases many immigrants have), and economic factors. This requires nuanced decision-making rather than blanket assertions of lawlessness such as the ones you have made. ~Democracies also have mechanisms for legal challenges and policy adjustments, reflecting ongoing debates and evolving perspectives within society. ~The underlying assumption that all immigration laws are benign and just, and should therefore be enforced, is blatantly incorrect. because immigration laws, like any other set of laws, can vary widely in their fairness, efficacy, and ethical considerations. Furthermore, what if their enforcement denies the dignity of immigrants? I hope we can agree that treating human beings with dignity is never up for debate.

-Human Trafficking, Drug Smuggling, and Overdose Deaths: ~The connection between illegal immigration and specific criminal activities like human trafficking and drug smuggling is a complex issue that requires evidence-based analysis, none of which you provide. ~While border security is an understandable concern of those affected by narco cartels, attributing all societal problems to illegal immigration oversimplifies the root causes and potential solutions. ~Addressing issues such as drug overdoses requires a comprehensive approach that includes healthcare, fair and unbiased law enforcement, addiction treatment, and international cooperation on drug control.

-Gaslighting and Media Narratives: ~Ah yes, “gaslighting,” the most overused word of our modern age…Accusations of gaslighting by the Biden administration and the media should be supported by specific examples and evidence of deliberate deception. You provide none. ~Public discourse on immigration should encourage factual discussions, respectful dialogue, and acknowledgment of diverse perspectives rather than resorting to labeling or dismissing opposing views as gaslighting.

-Focusing on a boogie-man instead of the systems that cause inequality. ~Your comments focus on the so-called negative impacts of “illegal” immigration on existing working-class communities, such as strain on resources and economic competition. However, a proper analysis would also consider the structural factors that contribute to these issues. ~Capitalist systems often benefit from a vulnerable and easily exploitable labor force, which can be perpetuated by irregular migration patterns. This creates a divide among workers, where immigrants are often pitted against native workers, leading to tensions and resentment. ~Instead of solely blaming immigrants for economic challenges, we should highlight the systemic inequalities and capitalist dynamics that drive these conditions. Issues like wage suppression and job insecurity are rooted in the profit-driven logic of capitalism, not solely immigration status.

Listen Sam, it’s essential to approach discussions on contentious topics with accuracy, nuance, and a commitment to constructive dialogue rather than rhetoric that may inflame tensions or distort realities. Think before you post bad takes on the internet.

Quite the essay… Your rebuttal of Sam’s comments above clearly seem to be coming from a particular political viewpoint. Although his frustration with this topic is evident, Sam’s comments reflect factual events that can easily be verified through CBP operational statistics, DHS data, or even the various news outlets. Despite of the fact that there is some merit in your comments that there is no “accurate information” presented, or lack of “context”, or “evidenced-based analysis”, “complexities”, “root causes” etc., given the limited scope of this exchange seems like an attempt to deflect the immediate reality that everyone can see if they look truthfully. The author’s attempt at reflecting only on some perceived benefits of immigration is certainly incomplete with regard to immigration as a whole. Again, given the limited scope of the article, a full understanding of the subject matter is not possible. Anyway, your denouncing of capitalism as an economic system clearly illustrates the position from which your comments are derived (“Marxist” – as you have explicitly stated in some of your other BU Today comments – on April 12, 2024 for example). Considering the effects of Marxism or communism wherever it has been implemented in the world, it would be interesting to hear someone, perhaps you, explain why the vast majority of migrants flock to capitalist countries…

Stephen Humphries wrote a similar story on this subject for the Christian Science Monitor: “Do immigrants help or hurt the US economy? The answer might surprise you.” You can find it here: https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2024/0409/immigrants-us-economy-labor-shortage His basic point is immigration and the economy are top concerns of voters ahead of the 2024 U.S. election. But political talking points don’t tell the whole story.

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Illegal Immigration in the United States, Research Paper Example

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Immigration is what has made America what it is today. If there were no immigrants, there would be no America. Everyone in the country is an immigrant or is directly descended from one, even including the oldest inhabitants. Many countries such as China, Mexico, England, and others have contributed to the United States. Legal immigration has been a defining factor in the US. However, illegal immigration today has produced several problems related to employment, disease, and terrorism for the American citizen. Immigration to the United States started in the 17th Century, with the first arrival of European settlers. Since then, immigration to the United States has experienced three major waves: during the 19th Century, after the Civil War and after the abolition of the quota system in 1965. The United States Congress has passed several immigration laws and they have been very monumental in developing the immigration policies of the United States. “The period of the great Depression that lasted approximately 10 years was remarkable since it is one point in time that we saw a decline in the number of immigrants to the United States”(Smith & Barry, 1998).

Actually, as time has passed and millions of immigrants have ventured to the country, the United States still maintains a welcoming attitude towards new immigrants. However, the processes for people who want to enter into the United States have become much more complex since the days of Ellis Island. The result of this phenomenon is another kind of immigrant: the illegal immigrant. Illegal immigration has been a problem for the United States for a long time. Thousands of illegal immigrants have come into US through many ways such as the Mexico border and Pacific Ocean. Every day thousands of illegal immigrants stream across the 2,500 miles of border with Mexico. According to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services, or INS, the total number of illegal immigrants in America increases by 275,000 annually. As of right now, the United States is host to an illegal population of 7 to 12 million, of whom the vast majority are Mexican or Hispanic in origin. These illegal and uninvited guests help themselves to jobs, education, welfare and unemployment compensation.

Barry Chiswick, a professor and head of the department at the University of Illinois gives a great definition of illegal immigration in the following paragraph:

By definition, illegal immigration arises from a divergence between whom the United States will accept as an immigrant and the desire of some foreign nationals to live and work in this country. Illegal immigration is as old as U.S. immigration law… with changes in U.S. immigration law and economic and political conditions in the United States and other countries, the nature and characteristics of illegal immigration have also changed (“Illegal Immigration,” n.p.).

In addition, Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Director of the Migration Policy Institute states that there are several forms of illegal immigration, but discusses four as the most common. These four include “undocumented/unauthorized entrants; individuals who are inspected upon entry into another state, but gain admission by using fraudulent documents; violators of the duration of a visa; and violators of the terms and conditions of a visa” (“Illegal Immigration,” n.p.). There are more and more individuals migrating to the United States for better jobs, a better life, and better opportunities for their families. However, many times it is done illegally and these individuals are considered illegal immigrants and aren’t favored in the American society. If they are here to better their lives and to make a difference in the American society, they should have no problem going through the many processes to allow them legal entrance into the states. According to Darrell M. West, “it is estimated that of the 35 million American Immigrants, two thirds (around 23 million) are legal permanent residents” (430).

Illegal immigration is a double edged sword. There are good aspects to illegal immigration, but it also has its flaws. On one hand, it provides the local economy with low cost to the illegal immigrants, while they are more productive. Each person, living within the United States, that is employed, should be paying taxes and illegal immigrants do, for the most part. However, they are not paying as much as they would if they were considered legal immigrants.Illegal immigration is a very serious problem in America as it causes many problems for our country; it would be different if they were legal immigrants. “According to the Center for Immigration Studies, in 2002 illegal-alien households imposed, in aggregate, costs exceeding $26 billion on the federal government while they paid $16 billion in federal taxes – thereby creating a net fiscal deficit of $10.4 billion per year at a federal level” (“Illegal Immigration: Costs, Crimes, & Relate Problems” 1).This phenomenon is not good for America’s development. In fact, according to Wayne Cornelius, the distinguished Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California at San Diego, “out of 1.5 million immigrants who enter the country each year, 500,000 of them are undocumented” (Cornelius 7). Because most illegal immigrants cross the borders unnoticeably, the government of United States is unable to enforce its immigration policies.There is no tolerance for illegal immigration, and any individual found illegally crossing the borders is also immediately deported. In the time period of Ellis Island, there were only a handful of policies and restrictions in regards to allowing immigrants into the country. According to most information, the individuals who were denied entry to the United States and immediately sent back to their homeland were those who were simply deemed criminals, anarchists, or carriers of disease (Eyewitness History 1). The purpose of these restrictions was to protect the United States and its citizens. The process by which an individual can become a legal resident is much more complicated now. The immigrants who want to become a temporary or permanent resident of the United States must endure the rather lengthy application process to receive a visa or green card.

Illegal immigration is bad for the country and it should be stopped completely in the United States. The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) is a law, which was enacted in 1986, about US policies and regulations regarding employment. The two main requirements of the IRCA include: “to hire only persons authorized to work in the United States and to discriminate on the basis of citizenship status or national origin” (LMD 1992). Many illegal immigrants are hired by US employers as undocumented workers and this is done because they can be hired at less than minimum wage. Most of them are engaged in the agricultural, manufacturing and construction industries. The reality is that illegal immigrants are taking American jobs and even displacing certain Americans and legal immigrants from rights that they are legally earned. According to West, Americans believe thatabout half of the illegal population takes jobs from native-born Americans and this is detrimental to our society. West explains this well in the following paragraph:

Critics fear that foreigners take jobs that otherwise would go to Americans or reduce wage gains through increased job competition. There is evidence of negative wage effects for native-born Americans without a high school diploma. For these individuals, yearly wages dropped 1.1 percent due to immigration. This clearly disadvantages native residents and raises legitimate fears concerning the impact of job competition on native-born Americans (435).

Non-profit organizations play a major role in the use of illegal immigrants and illegal immigrants in general. These organizations are put into place to help immigrants gain legal status and it is obvious that they play a major role in society in general. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a national, nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization, which devotes itself to reforming the nation’s immigration policies in order to serve the national interest. There are several reforms to illegal immigration in FAIR. The first one is Illegal Aliens Who Pay Taxes May Claim Tax Credits. “Organizations promoting the adoption of an amnesty for illegal aliens cite their payment of taxes as a justification of granting them legal status” (Web). Illegal immigrants contribute billions of dollars annually in the states so that they have the right to claim tax credits. On the contrary, FAIR comes up with another reform, which is illegal immigration is a crime. Each year, many aliens who cross U.S. borders are apprehended by Border Patrol. Both of them flagrantly violate the nation’s laws. “Apologists for illegal immigration try to paint it as a victimless crime, but the fact is that illegal immigration causes substantial harm to American citizens and legal immigrants, particularly those in the most vulnerable sectors of our population- the poor, minorities, and children” (Web). In addition, many do not just feel that immigrants cause problems in an economic way, but a societal way as well in which includes crime. Many Americans fear that our country has diminished ethically by the way of crime. According to the article “Illegal Immigration: Costs, Crimes, & Related Problems, “in Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide target illegal aliens, as do approximately two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants” (n.p.). That is a lot for people to think about when it comes to crime. Many illegal immigrants are also involved in much of the sexual assaults, robberies, extortion, and drive-by assassinations (“Illegal Immigration: Costs, Crimes & Related Problems,” n.p.). In recent years, the illegal immigrant growth has increased rapidly and it undermines national security. Most illegal immigrants come to U.S in order to seek work and get a better economic opportunity. To some extent, they deprive some American citizens’ opportunities and become a block because illegal immigrants just want lower salaries in order to provide for their families. According to this situation, the U.S government will not condone illegal immigration; it is impossible for them to accommodate illegal immigration by offering legal status.

On the contrary, many argue that illegal immigrants actually benefit the economy. West states the following in reference to this statement:

A national survey asked Americans whether they believe immigration improved U.S. culture with new ideas and customs. More than two thirds of Americans (68 percent) said they thought immigrants improved U.S. culture through new ideas. This provides perceptual support for the argument that immigrants add value, diversity, and ideas to civic life (438).

They also subsidize the labor force and do some jobs that most citizens are unwilling to do. Ramanujan Nadadur claims that “illegal immigrants are more willing than legal immigrants and native workers to take jobs where high labor turnover and poor working conditions have become a part of the labor process” (6). Furthermore, many people argue that illegal immigrants can help increase the local production of the United States because most of them are skilled laborers. Moreover, when businesses pay them lower than minimum wage, their costs go down, which means that the cost of production goes down, and this helps the citizens of the United States. In addition, “immigrants will take advantage of their ties to their native countries to open up new export markets for American products” (“U.S. Immigration Policy: What Should We Do?”, 2). Also, immigrants may make the economy of the United States stronger because if they send their US dollars to their local families, it makes American money more valuable. Though there are fears by all Americans that illegal immigrants will take their jobs, create more crime and lead us into darkness, this is not all true. The United States benefits from immigrants in more ways than one, especially socially.

Many things within our society have benefited from immigrants, whether legal or illegal. Some of these things include food, sports, culture, the arts, and education. According to the article entitled “U.S. Immigration Policy: What Should We do?,” “This latest generation of immigrants contains the best and brightest from a rich variety of cultures and regions” (2). Immigrants have an unshakable work ethic because they believe that the United States is the land of opportunity and they continue to help our society become stronger, more beneficial to its people, and livelier as a culture. The article “U.S. Immigration Policy: What Should We do?” states that “welcoming new immigrants into our country will inject valuable skills into the U.S. economy and enable American culture to maintain the rich diversity that appeals to consumers the world over” (2). It also states that it would renew the long tradition that the United States is a place of opportunity for many individuals throughout the world and this is admirable to many (“U.S. Immigration Policy: What Should We Do?”). According to West, “foreign students are highly motivated individuals who come to the United States for education, and then would like to get jobs, launch businesses, and develop innovative ideas. They are a source of great talent and an engine of economic development” (437). This is very true and is great for the American economy.

In conclusion, Illegal immigration is just that: illegal. Many Americans feel as if illegal immigrants come in to steal the only jobs we have available and to hurt our country by causing deficits to our federal government and incomes. However, this is not exactly the case. If there were more policies put into place in order for these individuals to become legal residents of the United States and it didn’t take years for that to happen, the economy and America could be benefiting a lot more from immigrants. The truth of the matter is that immigrants bring a variety of cultures, innovative ideas, excessive amounts of money, and intelligence to our society. Illegal immigration is something that our government has put much emphasis on combatting; however, that does not change what is really happening. In contrast, it would just be easier to help the illegal immigrants become legal immigrants as long as they fit the specific qualifications to become a U.S. citizen.

Works Cited

Cornelius, Wayne. “Controlling “Unwanted’ Immigration” Lessons from the United States”, 1993-2004. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 31.4 (2005): 775-84

“Illegal Immigration: Costs, Crimes, and Related Problems.” Discover The Networks . N.p. 2012.Web.2Dec 2013. <http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=196>.

“Immigration in the Early 1900’s.” Eyewitness to History. 2000. Web. 10 Oct. 2009. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/snpim1.htm

LMD, (Summer 1992). “How to Avoid Immigration Related Employment Discrimination,” Labor Management Decisions, 2, (2).

Nadadur, Ramanujan. “Illegal Immigration: A Positive Economic Contribution to the United States.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 35.6 (2009): 1037-52

Smith, James, Barry E. eds. The Immigration Debate: Studies on the Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration. 1998. Retrieved on 31 March 2013.

“U.S. Immigration Policy: What Should We Do?” Choices. N.p. Web. 2 Dec 2013. <www.choices.edu>.

West, Darrell. “The Cost and Benefits of Immigration.” Political Science Quarterly . 126.3 (2011): 427-443. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.

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Explainer-Trump Says Migrants Are Fueling Violent Crime. Here Is What the Research Shows

FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he arrives at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. April 10, 2024. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer/File Photo

By Ted Hesson and Mica Rosenberg

(Reuters) -Donald Trump is blaming migrants in the U.S. illegally for fueling violent crime as part of his campaign to win back the White House, repeating rhetoric used during his previous run for the presidency. But studies show immigrants are not more likely to engage in criminality.

WHAT IS TRUMP SAYING ABOUT IMMIGRANTS AND CRIME?

Former U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican challenging President Joe Biden in the November elections, has focused on crimes committed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally as part of his argument for stricter border controls.

Trump says Biden's policies are overly permissive and has branded crimes committed by immigrants in the country illegally as "Biden migrant crime." 

Trump has used dehumanizing terminology to describe immigrants in the U.S. illegally, calling them "animals" when talking about alleged criminal acts, and saying they are "poisoning the blood of our country," a phrase that has drawn criticism as xenophobic and echoing Nazi rhetoric. In response to the criticism, Trump has said he had no idea that German dictator Adolf Hitler had used similar language.

Recently, Trump and Republicans have focused on the case of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia allegedly murdered by a Venezuelan in the country illegally.

The Republican National Committee earlier this month launched a website called "Biden Bloodbath" that highlights anecdotal incidents involving migrants in eight U.S. states, including electoral battlegrounds such as Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung responded to a Reuters request for comment on research on the issue with a list of news articles about alleged crimes committed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

HOW HAS BIDEN RESPONDED?

Biden was interrupted during the State of the Union address in March by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican who demanded Biden acknowledge the murder.

Biden responded by saying Riley was "an innocent woman who was killed by an illegal." He then asked how many people were killed by "legals" - apparently referencing citizens and others in the country legally.

Biden later said he regretted calling Riley's accused killer "illegal" and said the term should have been "undocumented."

Biden's top border official, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said at a reporter roundtable last week that he "profoundly" disagrees with efforts "to demonize all migrants based on the actions of an individual."

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier this month that violent rhetoric was being used "to tear our country apart."

DO IMMIGRANTS COMMIT MORE CRIME THAN THE NATIVE BORN?

A range of studies by academics and think tanks have shown that immigrants do not commit crime at a higher rate than native-born Americans.

A more limited universe of studies specifically examine criminality among immigrants in the U.S. illegally but also find that they do not commit crimes at a higher rate.

A selection of recent research:

"Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Contentious Issue," by Charis Kubrin, a criminology professor at the University of California, Irvine, and Graham Ousey, a sociology professor at William & Mary. The 2018 study was published in the peer-reviewed Annual Review of Criminology.

• A meta-analysis of more than fifty studies on the link between immigration and crime between 1994 and 2014 found there was no significant relationship between the two.

• The researchers subsequently studied all aspects of the issue in a book published last year that came to similar results.

"Law-Abiding Immigrants: The Incarceration Gap Between Immigrants and the US-born, 1870–2020," by Ran Abramitzky, economics professor at Stanford University and four other researchers. The 2024 working paper was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

• The study, which used U.S. Census data, found immigrants had lower incarceration rates than the U.S.-born over a 150-year period.

"Comparing crime rates between undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and native-born US citizens in Texas," by Michael Light, sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and two other researchers. The 2020 study was published in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cato Institute research by Alex Nowrasteh and others

HOW RELIABLE IS THE DATA?

Several of the studies mentioned above were conducted by academic researchers and published in peer-reviewed journals.

The studies draw on a range of data sources, including U.S. Census records and estimates of the number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

Several reports examining crime rates for immigrants in the U.S. illegally use data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which logs immigration status in its arrest records.

Michael Light, one of the researchers who used the Texas data, said that crime rates would likely vary from state to state, but that the Texas figures were the best available.

The Cato Institute's Nowrasteh said researchers would have a better idea of the crime rate for immigrants in the country illegally if other states maintained and shared data in the same manner as Texas.

DO ANY STUDIES FIND IMMIGRANTS MORE LIKELY TO COMMIT CRIMES?

The Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that supports lower levels of immigration, has argued that researchers using data from the Texas Department of Public Safety undercounted crimes by immigrants in the country illegally. 

The group said in 2022 that both Michael Light and Nowrasteh failed to account for immigrants who were identified as being in the country illegally after they were imprisoned. Nowrasteh contested the CIS critique and said the group double-counted some criminal offenders in the country illegally. 

In its own study in 2009, CIS found "there is no clear evidence that immigrants commit crimes at higher or lower rates than others."

A 2018 study using Arizona state prison records from 1985-2017 found that immigrants in the country illegally were more likely to be convicted of a crime. The study, by conservative economist John Lott, found immigrants in the U.S. illegally tend to commit more serious crimes and serve longer sentences. But the Cato Institute's Nowrasteh criticized the findings, saying Lott had included immigrants who had legal status in the U.S. and may have violated the terms of a visa by committing a crime.

IS IT POSSIBLE THAT TRENDS HAVE SHIFTED RECENTLY? 

The data used to determine crime rates is typically several years old, so it does not explicitly speak to current or future trends. 

However, some studies found consistent patterns over long periods of time. 

Several researchers mentioned that more families and unaccompanied children have been caught crossing the border in the past decade, groups that are statistically less likely to commit crimes.

Michael Light, the University of Wisconsin-Madison professor, said U.S. research overall does not indicate immigrants are more likely to commit crime.

"Of course foreign-born individuals have committed crimes," Light said in an interview. "But do foreign-born individuals commit crime at a disproportionately higher rate than native-born individuals? The answer is pretty conclusively no."

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Mica Rosenberg in New York; Editing by Mary Milliken and Aurora Ellis)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

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71 Illegal Immigration Essay Topics & Examples

Looking for illegal immigration essay topics? The issue of undocumented immigration is hot, controversial, and worth exploring.

• 📝 Essay: How to Write

👍 Essay Topics & Examples

🔍 research paper topics & examples, ❓ questions about illegal immigration for research paper.

Illegal immigration refers to undocumented migration of people into a county in violation of the according immigration laws of that country. Illegal immigrants face a number of problems, like the risk of being enslaved, health problems due to the lack of access to public health systems, and many more. Whether you’re planning to write a 5-paragraph essay or a thesis about illegal immigration, the article below will be helpful. Here you’ll find everything all you might need to write an A+ immigration essay. There are research paper ideas, tips, & illegal immigration essay examples.

📝 Illegal Immigration Essay: How to Write

Illegal immigration essays are familiar to anyone studying sociology, politics, human rights, and other similar subjects. Today, there is plenty of information about illegal immigration on the Internet, so you shouldn’t worry about finding things to write about. What you absolutely need to pay attention to is the structure. The tips in this post will help you to nail your next illegal immigration essay!

Tip 1: Create a list of possible topics. Illegal immigration is a rather broad subject, so you will need to narrow it down a little bit. For example, you may want to write about the pros and cons of illegal immigration. Argumentative papers on this subject could be particularly successful if your points are strong and supported by evidence.

Tip 2: Write down a title. You may want to postpone this step until you’re one-on-one with the paper, but finding the right title will aid you in structuring the essay. There are numerous online resources that you could use to browse illegal immigration essay topics and titles. If nothing comes to mind, compose a thesis statement and use it as a preliminary title to help you focus.

Tip 3: Collect ideas. While you may have studied illegal immigration already, don’t write down any points until you’ve done your research. Be sure to check a variety of sources, including scholarly articles, government reports, newspaper articles, and editorial pieces. This will ensure that your overview of the chosen theme is comprehensive. Try to avoid sites such as Wikipedia, online encyclopedias, and blogs. While there may be some good points there, your tutor will most likely reject sources that are not academic quality. Hence, you should stick to publications from reputable sources to avoid losing marks! Write down all the key statements, information, and arguments that you can find online.

Tip 4: Prepare an outline. An outline is the backbone of your paper on illegal immigration. Argumentative essay outline examples would usually include an introduction, two points supporting your position, one point against it, a rebuttal, and a conclusion. A persuasive paper would have a different outline, with more supporting points and no opposing opinions. An informative essay will have an introduction, background, three to five main points, and a conclusion. Create a basic outline for the chosen essay type and don’t worry about adding information to each section yet.

Tip 5: Organize your points in a sequence. Now, return to the list of points you’ve already made and see which ones fit into the outline nicely. The most general information should go into the introduction, where you describe the problem and your approach. You should finish your introduction with an illegal immigration essay thesis to show the focus of the paper. In the next sections, your points should escalate in complexity. For example, you can start with the history of immigration, then consider recent data on undocumented immigrants, and then discuss the opportunities for immigration reform. Write each point as a topic sentence and ensure that they follow in a logical sequence. Delete any information that doesn’t fit – you won’t regret it later!

A paper structured based on these tips will be interesting to read and earn your tutor’s approval. If you need to write an essay about immigration in the United States, don’t forget to check our free sample papers!

• Free-rider Problem and Illegal Immigration The issue of free riding is inevitable in each and every country because of the presence of the presence of minors, tax evaders and illegal immigrants just to mention but a few.
• Illegal Immigration Policies and Violent Crime The authors of this article discuss how illegal immigration and border enforcement influence the level of crime along the U.S.-Mexico border.
• Strategies for Solving the Issue of Illegal Immigration in the US The first one is enforcing the measures preventing it, and the second one is changing immigration policy in order to make legalization easier.
• The Birth of Illegal Immigration In addition, Americans blamed Chinese immigrants for low wages and the unemployment rate, which further influenced the ban on Asians to move to the U.S.
• Illegal Immigration Control in the Texas Although the public assigns immense powers to the governor’s office, Texas’ office of the governor enjoys weak institutional powers because of the constitution’s provision of multiple offices that server alongside the office of the governor.
• The Illegal Immigration Prevention Policy For example, one of the biggest of them would be the necessity to analyze all the gathered information. Therefore, it is safe to assume that there would be no shortage of information for the Chef […]
• Hispanic Americans as Illegal Immigration Thus a historical loyalty to the Democratic Party is still sustained even today At 15% the Hispanic-American population of the United States makes up the fastest growing minority in the United States.
• Illegal Immigration: Difference in Covering the Matter The aim of the paper is to discover the difference in covering the matter of illegal migration to Canary Islands from sub-Saharan including periodical issues, radio broadcasts, and a photo, in order not only to […]
• Ethics of Illegal Immigration Effects on the US As such, the Immigration Act of 1924 was established, which promoted the immigration of foreign citizens into the US to meet these requirements, and also created several objective preconditions for foreigners to consider entering America […]
• Illegal Immigration Issue in the USA The secure border could also be considered one of the possible solutions to the problem of illegal immigration as it will help to control this very aspect.
• Illegal Immigration, Its Causes, Methods, Effects It is the duty of immigration officers to update all the expired visas and ensure that either they are renewed or the victims leave the country.
• Illegal Immigration Crisis: Problems and Solutions For example, federal policy has led to the involvement of local law enforcement as immigration agents who have inherited the responsibilities of checking citizenship status and detaining those failing to produce documentation.
• Illegal Immigration as a Major Problem for the USA However, when it comes to defining the factors contributing to the growth of the unemployment rates among the local population, not only the growth of the number of immigrants, but also the quality of the […]
• America and the Problem of Illegal Immigration The presence of the illegal immigrants, commonly known as illegal aliens, is such massive numbers has brought the issue of illegal immigration to the limelight of the U.S.political scene, to the halls of Congress, and […]
• Sheriff Joe’s Illegal Immigration in Arizona Often dubbed as the “toughest sheriff in the United States”, the sheriff has the numbers to back his fight against illegal immigrants in his county.
• Illegal Immigration in the United States Another factor that calls for strict application of the law for the deportation of illegal immigrants in the United States is the fact that the legislation that has been in existence has provided avenues for […]
• Illegal Immigration Problem in the United States The fences that were set up to deter entry only covered part of the border and in the past decade, the government has been searching for better ways to control entry into the United States.
• Illegal Immigration in the USA Some of the most secure cities in the countries happen to be in the south. Kane and Johnson also add that immigrants are not a problem to the country’s economy; consequently, anti-immigration laws need not […]
• Is the Legalization of Illegal Aliens a Good Solution to Illegal Immigration in America? Huge numbers of illegal immigrants come from the southern borders of the US and especially on the US-Mexico border and to the north; the US-Canada border.
• Role of Frontex in Combating Illegal Immigration in the European Union Territory Surveillance on external borders With its headquarters in Warsaw, Poland, the European Agency for the management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the member states of the European Union is a body, which […]
• Illegal Immigration in the United States as an Economic Burden Finally, the economic challenge of illegal immigration also undermines the educational system in the United States. As it has been mentioned before, the illegal immigration in the Unites States creates both opportunities and shortcomings for […]
• Migration and National Security The author has noted that there is a close relationship between immigrants and these issues and this call for the need to evaluate the application of these policies in controlling the activities of immigrants in […]
• The Issue of Muslims’ Immigration to Australia This increase was especially noticeable in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, following the overthrow of the monarchy in Egypt, resulting in the rise of the Arab nationalist movement.
• Stopping Illegal Immigration: Border Security The other reason for the need to stop illegal immigration is that the Illegal aliens are weighing down many systems in the country.
• Illegal Immigration in the United States The name of the article to be critiqued is, ‘The Economics and Policy of Illegal Immigration in the United States’. One of the hypotheses that have been supported by the article is that policymakers across […]
• Immigration and Illegal Foreigners in Japan However, the economic boom of the mid 1980s necessitated the use of foreign workers and this marked the first wave of immigrants in Japan.
• Effects of illegal immigration on the economy of the United States and the measures that be taken to minimize the effect The study will include the demographics of the illegal immigration, its history, the immigration policy, and the impact that the illegal immigration has on the economy of the United States.
• How Has Immigration Transformed the Life and Culture of London Over the Past 150 Years? Except in the recent years where the number has decreased as a result of the heightening recession, people seeking employment have always constituted the largest number of the total inflows in the UK.
• Socio-Economic Benefits of Immigrant Population in the US and Canada Immigration in the United States and Canada in the Post Hart-Cella Act and Canadian Immigration Act Era This paper addresses the socio-economic benefits of immigrant population in the United States of America and Canada.
• Illegal Immigration to the United States Fox News has argued that it is very difficult to actually determine how an increase in the number of illegal immigrants gets to affect the rate of crime in the United States.
• Economic advantages and disadvantages of immigration into the U.S. According to Geigenberger, because of this inability to get taxes from the majority of the immigrants, the government is always strained in the achievement of objectives.
• The Impacts of Illegal Immigration on the Country of Destination The illegal immigrants find a new life and find means of serving in the new destination, accordingly the country of destination realize some changes. Waldo disagree that illegal immigrants contribute to the economy of the […]
• Immigration Reform and the Economic Impact The emergence of immigration policy from the comprehensive immigration reform primarily seeks to implement a flexible legal immigration platform that would leverage the economic situations of the United States. The national GDP depends on the […]
• Immigration Bill in US This essay seeks to prove that it is proper for such people to acquire citizenship in the United States of America through the passing of the pending immigration bill.
• The Issue of Illegal Immigration On the other hand, opponents of immigration depict immigrants as a menace to the American people as it promotes the rise in criminal activities and causes an economic and social burden to taxpayers.
• Illegal Immigration: Views of Policy Makers, Media and General Public Illegal immigration into the U.S.is a billion dollar question that has fueled considerable public debate within the country in the past few years due the inherent social and economic costs that illegal immigration places on […]
• The Impact of Immigration on the Economy of the USA The USA is one of the most attractive countries to come for many specialists and workers from different countries of the World.
• Argument for Measures to Control Illegal Immigration One of the impacts of such immigration is the financial burden that is laid on the government in terms of making provisions for the immigrants.
• The Unemployed and Illegal Immigrants in the United States Are More Likely to Be Involved in Crime Than the Employed and Legal Immigrants The criteria of selection for the literature will be the relevance to the research topic as well as the year of publication.
• History of the Illegal Immigration into the U.S. It also proposes some policies to be implemented by the government in a bid to curtail the demerits of illegal immigrants When the house is granting citizenship to illegal immigrant, it should take note of […]
• Economic Contribution of Slaves and Present Day Legal and Illegal Immigration In Europe, slavery peaked in the fourteenth and ended in the late twentieth century after the emancipation of serfdom. The economy of a country is undoubtedly the last receptor of the effects of illegal immigrants.
• Illegal Immigrants and Amnesty: A Pro Argument This is given that the illegal immigrants will now be able to participate fully in the economy. However, they are of the view that, as much as this might be the case, this is not […]
• Legal Immigration versus Illegal Immigration in America Due to the large number of illegal immigrants in the U. Legal immigration in America is accompanied by introduction of new skills to the country.
• Implications of Illegal Immigration in the US According to politicians, an increase in the number of illegal immigrants is highly likely to destabilize the law of the land, as well as disrupt the government’s planning and implementation of the labor market laws.
• Analyzing the Issue of Illegal Immigration in the US Illegal immigration is one of the main disasters of the USA. The Mexico illegal immigrants remain one of the most devastating problems of the USA.
• Arizona Immigration Law: What For? Lately though, the signing of an immigration law that seems to curtail the freedom of the people by Governor Jan Brewer rattled some feathers not only in the state, but in the larger US and […]
• Does Border Enforcement Protect U.S. Workers From Illegal Immigration?
• Does Illegal Immigration Empower Rightist Parties?
• How Illegal Immigration Effects the Economy and the School System in the U.S.?
• How Should America Handle Illegal Immigration?
• Who Has the Most Impact on Illegal Immigration Policy?
• Why the Border Fence May Not Be the Solution for the Illegal Immigration?
• Why the Federal Government Can’t End Illegal Immigration in the US?
• What Are the Common Causes of Illegal Immigration?
• What Is the Role of Smugglers in Illegal Immigration and Border Enforcement?
• What Is the Effect of Illegal Immigration on the Hospitality and Food Industry?
• What Is President Donald Trump’s Zero Tolerance Policy Effect on Illegal Immigration?
• What Are the Welfare Effects of Illegal Immigration?
• What Are the Emerging Geopolitics of Illegal Immigration in the EU?
• What Is the Rational Approach to Illegal Immigration?
• What Is Theory of Permissible Illegal Immigration?
• What Are the Links Between Illegal Immigration and Organized Crime?
• What Are the Strategic Perspectives on Illegal Immigration Into South Africa?
• What Are the Perspectives and Challenges of Asylum Policy and Illegal Immigration?
• How Illegal Immigration Laws Affect the Economic of Texas?
• What Is the All-American Canal and What Are Its Effects on Illegal Immigration?
• What Is the Controversy Surrounding Arizona’s Anti-illegal Immigration Legislation?
• Why Is Turkey a Transit Country for Illegal Immigration to EU?
• What Is the Role of Informality, Taxation and Trade in Illegal Immigration?
• What Is the European Union’s Anti-illegal Immigration Discourse?
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• Chicago (N-B)

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Trump says migrants are fueling violent crime. Here is what the research shows

• Medium Text

WHAT IS TRUMP SAYING ABOUT IMMIGRANTS AND CRIME?

How has biden responded, do immigrants commit more crime than the native born.

• The report, which used data from the Texas Department of Public Safety between 2012-2018, found a lower felony arrest rate for immigrants in the U.S. illegally compared to legal immigrants and native-born U.S. citizens and no evidence of increasing criminality among immigrants.
• Light published a study New Tab , opens new tab in 2017 that found illegal immigration does not increase violent crime. The study used data from all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., from 1990-2014. A separate study found New Tab , opens new tab no link between increased illegal immigration and drunk-driving deaths.
• The libertarian think tank has published multiple New Tab , opens new tab reports New Tab , opens new tab that show immigrants in the country commit crimes at lower rates than the native-born. In a recent USA Today op-ed New Tab , opens new tab , Nowrasteh previewed new research that found immigrants in the U.S. illegally in Texas were about 26% less likely to be convicted of homicide than native-born Americans from 2013-2022.

DO ANY STUDIES FIND IMMIGRANTS MORE LIKELY TO COMMIT CRIMES?

Is it possible that trends have shifted recently.

Get weekly news and analysis on the U.S. elections and how it matters to the world with the newsletter On the Campaign Trail. Sign up here.

Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Mica Rosenberg in New York; Editing by Mary Milliken and Aurora Ellis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. New Tab , opens new tab

Thomson Reuters

Ted Hesson is an immigration reporter for Reuters, based in Washington, D.C. His work focuses on the policy and politics of immigration, asylum and border security. Prior to joining Reuters in 2019, Ted worked for the news outlet POLITICO, where he also covered immigration. His articles have appeared in POLITICO Magazine, The Atlantic and VICE News, among other publications. Ted holds a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and bachelor's degree from Boston College.

Mica Rosenberg leads the immigration team at Reuters, reporting her own projects while helping edit and coordinate cross-border coverage. An investigation she published with colleagues into child labor in the United States – exposing migrant children manufacturing car parts and working in chicken processing in Alabama – was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won a George Polk award among other honors. She was a foreign correspondent reporting from nearly a dozen countries across Latin America and also covered legal affairs and white-collar crime in New York. She completed a Knight Bagehot Fellowship in business journalism and earned a master’s from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. She is originally from New Mexico and is based in Brooklyn.

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New Migrants Get Work Permits. Other Undocumented Immigrants Want Them, Too.

Long-term undocumented immigrants — and their employers — are feeling left out by Biden administration policies allowing most who just crossed the border to work legally.

By Miriam Jordan and Lydia DePillis

Sam Sanchez, a Chicago restaurateur, was incensed when President Biden announced last September that his administration would extend work eligibility to nearly half a million Venezuelans, many of them migrants who had recently crossed the border illegally.

What about his undocumented employees like Ruben, a Mexican father of two U.S.-born children who has been in the United States since 1987, and Juan, another Mexican worker, who has trained dozens of new hires at Moe’s Cantina?

“It’s offensive that my employees and other immigrants are being leapfrogged by new arrivals,” said Mr. Sanchez, who is on the board of the National Restaurant Association.

Having built lives and families since entering the country unlawfully many years ago, they have been waiting for Congress to give them a path to work legally. “For those of us here a long time trying to do everything right, it’s just not fair that we are forgotten,” said Juan, 53, whose last name was withheld out of concern about his immigration status.

Confronted with an influx of migrants making their way to Chicago, New York and other big cities, Mr. Biden has used executive power to allow several hundred thousand of them to live and work temporarily in the United States in an effort to make them less reliant on shelters and other assistance.

Now groups representing undocumented immigrants and their U.S.-citizen children — as well as their employers — are urging the president to deploy the same broad power to open channels for the more than eight million living in the United States who are barred from legal employment.

“If President Biden can grant work permits to new arrivals, he can do it for people picking our crops, emptying bedpans and cleaning hotel rooms for more than 10 years,” said Rebecca Shi, executive director of the American Business Immigration Coalition, whose 1,400 members include business associations and company executives.

Business leaders have lobbied Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill for decades to overhaul the broken immigration system and address their labor needs. But the calls have gone nowhere in an increasingly polarized Congress.

At a rally in Chicago last month, demonstrators urged the Biden administration to allow undocumented immigrants to work legally. And in Las Vegas, Nevada’s governor, a Republican, and the state’s U.S. senators, both Democrats, joined employers, unions and immigrant advocates to send the same message.

The business coalition, in a letter to the president signed by more than 300 employers and trade associations, urged “immediate action” to extend work authorization to long-term undocumented people. In particular, Ms. Shi said, the president should prioritize work permits for those without legal status: more than one million undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens, 800,000 parents of U.S.-citizen children and 300,000 farm workers.

About three quarters of the 10.5 million undocumented people in the United States as of 2021 were in the labor force, according to the Pew Research Center , an independent think tank. Roughly two million people out of the overall undocumented population have a temporary legal status that makes them eligible to work.

But a sweeping action by the president to allow millions more to work legally could prompt court challenges and political attacks from critics, even as some of those same critics have stymied or undermined the administration’s efforts.

Mr. Biden’s latest proposal — a bill this year to curb unlawful migration — was backed by top Republicans in Congress. But it collapsed after Republican leaders withdrew support, bowing to pressure from former President Donald J. Trump, their party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

The surge in migration to the United States has left Mr. Biden with no easy options. The perception that he is favoring newcomers over longtime undocumented immigrants could hurt him among Latino voters, long a Democratic bloc that has begun to fragment, with an increasing number supporting Republican candidates.

Eduardo Gamarra, a professor at Florida International University who recently polled Latino voters , said that some of them who have settled in the United States may see themselves as having less in common with the new immigrants.

“When you try to say, ‘Why are you supporting these positions?’ they will tell you, one, ‘We don’t like illegals,’ even though they might have been illegal themselves,’” Dr. Gamarra said.

Channels exist for foreigners to immigrate legally to the United States, but they are available primarily to those who have specialized skills or family already in the country.

Meanwhile, international crises have pushed millions of people toward the U.S. border. Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua have endured years of political and economic turbulence. Over the last year, President Biden has used humanitarian “parole” to allow about 390,000 people from those countries to come to the United States and receive work authorization, provided they have a financial sponsor.

Hundreds of thousands of other Venezuelans who have fled their country have received what is known as Temporary Protected Status, which has helped Venezuelans leave shelters as they receive work permits.

To better manage the flow of migrants, the Biden administration has promoted a smartphone app that since last year has granted parole to those who use it to schedule appointments at the border, creating another way for migrants to obtain work eligibility.

Margaret Stock, an immigration lawyer, said that the president has legal authority to authorize employment for others. “He may be reluctant, but Biden could grant parole and work permits to whoever he wanted,” she said.

A White House spokesman, Angelo Fernández Hernández, responded in general terms when asked about the push for work permits, saying that Congress had failed to consider the president’s 2021 proposal to reform immigration , and that, “the administration is constantly evaluating possible policy options.” Obtaining a work permit opens up a wider range of opportunities and raises immigrant wages by 10 percent on average, research shows .

Those who have lived unlawfully in the United States for decades typically work off the books, or present documents under a fake or stolen name to get hired, which is illegal. It has become more difficult to do that because about half of all states require employers to use an electronic system to detect irregularities.

Business owners like Mr. Sanchez who employ people without valid work documents have become increasingly vocal about the plight of their workers and their struggle filling jobs amid a labor shortage.

And although more seasonal guest worker visas have been issued in recent years for some sectors, like agriculture, employers say that granting work permits to longtime unauthorized immigrants would do more to address the problem.

“We have operations that want to grow,” said Matt Teagarden, chief executive of the Kansas Livestock Association. “Labor is a limiting factor.”

The billions of dollars that undocumented immigrants contribute to public coffers has heightened the sense that Mr. Biden’s recent efforts for newcomers are unfair. According to an analysis of 2021 census data by the American Immigration Council , undocumented workers paid $31 billion in federal, state and local taxes, including into the Social Security system from which they cannot draw retirement benefits.

Eréndira Rendón, whose parents are undocumented Mexicans in their late 60s, has watched mayors press the White House to issue work permits to recently arrived migrants straining municipal resources.

Her mother jarred pickles and her father worked in a slaughterhouse. They put two children through college and bought a home. Because they cannot receive retirement benefits, they depend on their children to help them.

“I wish the mayors were advocating as loudly for undocumented people who have been here all these years,” said Ms. Rendón, 38, who works for a nonprofit in Chicago called the Resurrection Project that helps new migrants complete work permit applications.

For some immigrants, new migrants also create competition for jobs. Although research generally shows that immigrants do not depress wages overall, there can be short-term effects on similar workers.

The dynamic is palpable in New York City at the corners where immigrants hustle for work. Lucia Goyen, director of day laborer programs at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, says newcomers will often accept just a few dollars an hour, lowering wages for everyone.

When new arrivals receive work permits, they are free to find a job in the formal economy that is still off limits to many who have been in the city far longer.

”There has been this frustration of, ‘I’ve been here 20-30 years, I have no access to a work permit, but this is a growing list of things that new migrants are getting handed to them,’” Ms. Goyen said.

Miriam Jordan reports from a grass roots perspective on immigrants and their impact on the demographics, society and economy of the United States. More about Miriam Jordan

Lydia DePillis reports on the American economy. She has been a journalist since 2009, and can be reached at [email protected]. More about Lydia DePillis

Biden has made key issues of inflation, illegal immigration worse: poll

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WASHINGTON — Most Americans say President Biden has made the cost of living and illegal immigration — two of the major issues in this year’s general election — worse rather than better during his term of office.

According to a survey from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research published Friday, 58% say Biden’s approach to the cost of living either “hurt a little” or “hurt a lot.” By contrast, just 18% say the president had helped ease the pressure with his policies.

Another majority (56%) said the same of the president’s handling of immigration and border security, with only 16% saying Biden had helped the issue.

A Gallup survey from last month found 55% of Americans said they worry about inflation “a great deal,” with 52% saying the same about the economy and 48% saying the same of illegal immigration.

Meanwhile, 40% said Donald Trump had helped the cost of living issue while president, giving him a 22 percentage-point lead over Biden, while 46% said he had bolstered border security — a 30-point edge over his rival.

In all, consumer prices are up 19% since Biden took office in January 2021, according to federal data, while the annual inflation rate remained elevated at 3.5% as of March.

Meanwhile, the US recorded a record-breaking 2.5 million illegal immigrant apprehensions in fiscal year 2023, which ended Sept. 30, which was followed by an all-time monthly record of nearly 302,000 in December.

Most people who illegally cross the border are being released into the US to await rulings on their asylum claims in badly backlogged proceedings. They are entitled to work permits after an initial six-month wait period.

Biden ended Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy that required asylum applicants to await decisions south of the border, which Republicans say created an incentive for more migrants to cross illegally.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in January that  more than 85%  of those detained for illegally crossing the border were being released into the US — up from 71% in October and 74% in November.

In the AP-NORC poll, 47% of Americans said the 77-year-old Trump had made US relations with other countries and abortion laws worse — his worst score on any of the issues polled.

The 45th president appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who voted in June 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade and scrap the federal right to an abortion in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

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Trump has sought to moderate voter blowback by encouraging Republican-led states to continue to allow abortions past a certain point of the pregnancy in the cases of rape, incest or medical conditions that threaten the life of the mother.

Biden has sought to rally voters on the abortion issue, saying Wednesday in response to an Arizona Supreme Court ruling that criminalized nearly all pregnancy terminations in that state that voters should “elect me.”

Trump said Friday that the Arizona court “went too far” in reimposing a law from 1864 and that the state legislature should “act as fast as possible” to pass new abortion rights.

The poll found Trump also has trouble with voters on environmental and election-related issues, with 46% saying he made climate change worse and the same percentage saying he undermined voting rights and election security.

Biden and the Democrats defied expectations of a “red wave” in the 2022 midterm elections by focusing on abortion rights and Trump’s actions ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, in which his supporters battled police to disrupt certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory.

The AP-NORC poll surveyed 1,204 US adults April 4-8, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

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Explainer-Trump says migrants are fueling violent crime. Here is what the research shows

By Ted Hesson and Mica Rosenberg

(Reuters) -Donald Trump is blaming migrants in the U.S. illegally for fueling violent crime as part of his campaign to win back the White House, repeating rhetoric used during his previous run for the presidency. But studies show immigrants are not more likely to engage in criminality.

WHAT IS TRUMP SAYING ABOUT IMMIGRANTS AND CRIME?

Former U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican challenging President Joe Biden in the November elections, has focused on crimes committed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally as part of his argument for stricter border controls.

Trump says Biden's policies are overly permissive and has branded crimes committed by immigrants in the country illegally as "Biden migrant crime." 

Trump has used dehumanizing terminology to describe immigrants in the U.S. illegally, calling them "animals" when talking about alleged criminal acts, and saying they are "poisoning the blood of our country," a phrase that has drawn criticism as xenophobic and echoing Nazi rhetoric. In response to the criticism, Trump has said he had no idea that German dictator Adolf Hitler had used similar language.

Recently, Trump and Republicans have focused on the case of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia allegedly murdered by a Venezuelan in the country illegally.

The Republican National Committee earlier this month launched a website called "Biden Bloodbath" that highlights anecdotal incidents involving migrants in eight U.S. states, including electoral battlegrounds such as Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung responded to a Reuters request for comment on research on the issue with a list of news articles about alleged crimes committed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

HOW HAS BIDEN RESPONDED?

Biden was interrupted during the State of the Union address in March by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican who demanded Biden acknowledge the murder.

Biden responded by saying Riley was "an innocent woman who was killed by an illegal." He then asked how many people were killed by "legals" - apparently referencing citizens and others in the country legally.

Biden later said he regretted calling Riley's accused killer "illegal" and said the term should have been "undocumented."

Biden's top border official, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, said at a reporter roundtable last week that he "profoundly" disagrees with efforts "to demonize all migrants based on the actions of an individual."

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier this month that violent rhetoric was being used "to tear our country apart."

DO IMMIGRANTS COMMIT MORE CRIME THAN THE NATIVE BORN?

A range of studies by academics and think tanks have shown that immigrants do not commit crime at a higher rate than native-born Americans.

A more limited universe of studies specifically examine criminality among immigrants in the U.S. illegally but also find that they do not commit crimes at a higher rate.

A selection of recent research:

"Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Contentious Issue," by Charis Kubrin, a criminology professor at the University of California, Irvine, and Graham Ousey, a sociology professor at William & Mary. The 2018 study was published in the peer-reviewed Annual Review of Criminology.

• A meta-analysis of more than fifty studies on the link between immigration and crime between 1994 and 2014 found there was no significant relationship between the two.

• The researchers subsequently studied all aspects of the issue in a book published last year that came to similar results.

"Law-Abiding Immigrants: The Incarceration Gap Between Immigrants and the US-born, 1870–2020," by Ran Abramitzky, economics professor at Stanford University and four other researchers. The 2024 working paper was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

• The study, which used U.S. Census data, found immigrants had lower incarceration rates than the U.S.-born over a 150-year period.

"Comparing crime rates between undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and native-born US citizens in Texas," by Michael Light, sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and two other researchers. The 2020 study was published in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cato Institute research by Alex Nowrasteh and others

HOW RELIABLE IS THE DATA?

Several of the studies mentioned above were conducted by academic researchers and published in peer-reviewed journals.

The studies draw on a range of data sources, including U.S. Census records and estimates of the number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

Several reports examining crime rates for immigrants in the U.S. illegally use data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which logs immigration status in its arrest records.

Michael Light, one of the researchers who used the Texas data, said that crime rates would likely vary from state to state, but that the Texas figures were the best available.

The Cato Institute's Nowrasteh said researchers would have a better idea of the crime rate for immigrants in the country illegally if other states maintained and shared data in the same manner as Texas.

DO ANY STUDIES FIND IMMIGRANTS MORE LIKELY TO COMMIT CRIMES?

The Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that supports lower levels of immigration, has argued that researchers using data from the Texas Department of Public Safety undercounted crimes by immigrants in the country illegally. 

The group said in 2022 that both Michael Light and Nowrasteh failed to account for immigrants who were identified as being in the country illegally after they were imprisoned. Nowrasteh contested the CIS critique and said the group double-counted some criminal offenders in the country illegally. 

In its own study in 2009, CIS found "there is no clear evidence that immigrants commit crimes at higher or lower rates than others."

A 2018 study using Arizona state prison records from 1985-2017 found that immigrants in the country illegally were more likely to be convicted of a crime. The study, by conservative economist John Lott, found immigrants in the U.S. illegally tend to commit more serious crimes and serve longer sentences. But the Cato Institute's Nowrasteh criticized the findings, saying Lott had included immigrants who had legal status in the U.S. and may have violated the terms of a visa by committing a crime.

IS IT POSSIBLE THAT TRENDS HAVE SHIFTED RECENTLY? 

The data used to determine crime rates is typically several years old, so it does not explicitly speak to current or future trends. 

However, some studies found consistent patterns over long periods of time. 

Several researchers mentioned that more families and unaccompanied children have been caught crossing the border in the past decade, groups that are statistically less likely to commit crimes.

Michael Light, the University of Wisconsin-Madison professor, said U.S. research overall does not indicate immigrants are more likely to commit crime.

"Of course foreign-born individuals have committed crimes," Light said in an interview. "But do foreign-born individuals commit crime at a disproportionately higher rate than native-born individuals? The answer is pretty conclusively no."

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Mica Rosenberg in New York; Editing by Mary Milliken and Aurora Ellis)