Volume 59, Issue 3
ARTICLE

The Hidden American Immigration Consensus: A Conjoint Analysis of Attitudes toward Immigrants

First published: 21 November 2014
Citations: 212

We thank participants in seminars at BYU, MIT, Stanford University, Temple University, the University of California–Berkeley, the University of California–San Diego, the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the University of Pennsylvania, and the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, as well as Adam Berinsky, Jack Citrin, Rafaela Dancygier, Shana Kushner Gadarian, Todd Hartman, Chad Hazlett, Gabriel Lenz, Deborah Schildkraut, Jasjeet Sekhon, John Sides, David Singer, Cara Wong, and Matt Wright for helpful comments. For excellent research assistance, we acknowledge Christopher Duffner, Katherine Foley, Douglas Kovel, Clare Tilton, Amelia Whitehead, Marzena Zukowsa, and especially Anton Strezhnev. Stefan Subias provided considerable assistance in fielding the survey. The usual disclaimer applies. The data used in this study are available in the AJPS Data Archive on Dataverse (http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/ajps).

Abstract

Many studies have examined Americans' immigration attitudes. Yet prior research frequently confounds multiple questions, including which immigrants to admit and how many to admit. To isolate attitudes on the former question, we use a conjoint experiment that simultaneously tests the influence of nine immigrant attributes in generating support for admission. Drawing on a two‐wave, population‐based survey, we demonstrate that Americans view educated immigrants in high‐status jobs favorably, whereas they view those who lack plans to work, entered without authorization, are Iraqi, or do not speak English unfavorably. Strikingly, Americans' preferences vary little with their own education, partisanship, labor market position, ethnocentrism, or other attributes. Beneath partisan divisions over immigration lies a broad consensus about who should be admitted to the country. The results are consistent with norms‐based and sociotropic explanations of immigration attitudes. This consensus points to limits in both theories emphasizing economic and cultural threats, and sheds new light on an ongoing policy debate.

Number of times cited according to CrossRef: 212

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