Pew Research: Most Americans Oppose Increased Immigration

In a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, 73 percent of Americans stated that they wanted to see immigration levels to the United States stay the same or decrease. Only 24 percent expressed interest in more immigration.

Despite what many in the mainstream media claim, results like this shouldn’t surprise anyone. President Donald Trump made real immigration reform a focal point of his successful 2016 campaign, in which he won 209 counties that voted for former President Obama twice, and 194 of the 217 counties that only voted for Obama once. In 2016, 70 percentof American said that immigration would be a “very important” deciding factor in how they voted. Among those who supported President Trump, nearly 90 percent listed immigration as a “very important” issue – matched only by the economy, which was also “very important” to 90 percent of voters.

In addition to polling in the United States, the Pew Research study surveyed 27 countries in all. Not a single country had a majority or plurality of respondents call for more immigration. In fact, a majority or plurality in 16 countries expressed a desire to see immigration levels decrease or pause entirely, including 82 percent in Greece, 71 percent of Italians, and 58 percent in Germany. Spain had the highest number of respondents calling for more immigration, at 28 percent, versus 69 percent who want to see levels stay the same or decrease.

For more than four decades, the Federation for American Immigration reform (FAIR) has advocated for more sustainable immigration levels into the United States. FAIR believes that decreasing the current flow of legal immigration levels to 300,000 – compared to current levels of over 1 million – would better represent the interests of American citizens by managing population growth, addressing environmental concerns, and maintaining a high quality of life.