The Pew Research Center in Washington, DC says it is “a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. We conduct public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research. We do not take policy positions.”[1]
In early August 2024 the Pew Center conducted an analysis of the opinions on reforming U.S. immigration law by Harris and Trump supporters that provided the following Center’s outline of possible agreement on topics for reform of U.S. immigration law:[2]
- “Eighty percent of Harris supporters and 96% of Trump supporters want strengthened border security. Eighty-seven percent of Harris supporters and 71% of Trump supporters endorse admitting more high-skilled immigrants; and similar percentages support allowing international students who receive U.S. college degrees to stay in the country. Fifty-five percent of Trump supporters and 86% of Harris supporters favor admitting immigrants who can fill labor shortages. And surprisingly, about half of each candidate’s supporters believe that legal immigration should continue at roughly current levels.”
- “About three-quarters of both Trump (74%) and Harris (76%) supporters say the U.S. immigration system needs major changes or needs to be completely rebuilt.”
This concurrence was despite the following differences on other immigration topics:
- “Nearly nine-in-ten Trump supporters (88%) favor mass deportations of immigrants living in the country illegally. In contrast, only 27% of Harris supporters favor mass deportations while 72% oppose.”
- “More than a third of Trump supporters (37%) favor allowing undocumented immigrants to live and work in the U.S. if they are married to an American citizen, compared with 80% of Harris supporters who say the same.”
- “About half of Trump supporters (49%) support admitting more civilian refugees who are escaping war or violence, but a majority of Harris supporters (85%) say the same.”
- “A majority of Trump supporters (59%) say that the increasing number of immigrants will make things worsefor people like them. But a majority of Harris supporters (65%) say that the increasing number of immigrants will make no difference in their lives, with only 11% saying it will make life worse for people like them.’
- “A majority [of Trump supporters] say immigrants living in the country legally either make the economy better (31%) or don’t have much of an effect on it (38%), while 29% say these immigrants make the economy worse. By contrast, a clear majority of Harris supporters (62%) say immigrants living in the U.S. legally make the economy better.”
- “An overwhelming majority of Trump supporters (92%) say immigrants living in the country illegallymake crime worse, compared with 37% of Harris supporters.”
- “Most Harris supporters (87%) say that there should be a way for undocumented immigrants to stay in the country legally, compared with only a third of Trump supporters (33%).”
- “For Trump supporters, 82% say immigration is very important to their vote in the 2024 presidential election, trailing only the economy in importance” while “just 39% of Harris supporters say the issue of immigration is very important to their presidential vote this year.”
Comments
The Pew Center’s public opinion research obviously was conducted before the U.S. presidential election in early November of this year, and the results of that election will have a more significant impact on whether and how the U.S. may adopt revisions to its immigration laws. But any such analysis and debate must give great weight to the existing and predicted declining and aging of the overall U.S. population and hence the U.S. need for more immigrants, including medical doctors and personnel. [3]
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[1] About Pew Research Center,
[2] Mukherjee & Krogstad, Trump and Harris Supporters Differ on Mass Deportations but Favor Border Security, High-Skilled Immigration, Pewresearch.org (Sept. 27, 2024). See also Moslmani & Passel, What the data says about immigrants in the U.S., Pewresearch.org (Sept. 7, 2024) Galston, A Way Forward on Immigration, W.S.J. (Oct.1, 1024).
[3] Here are some of the many dwkcommentaries.com posts about the aging and declining population of the U.S. and many other countries and hence the need for more immigrants:U.S. States That Could Have Greatest Benefit from Immigrants Labor (February 28, 2024); Another Documentation of the U.S. Need for Immigrants (April 12, 2024); U.S. Fertility Rate Falls to Record Low (April 25, 2024); Will the World’s Population Cease To Expand? (May 15, 2024); Foreign Physicians Needed To Solve U.S. Doctor Shortage, (June 1, 2024);“Economist” Magazine Also Predicts Lower World Population (June 3, 3034):
