Rasmussen Shows 2:1 Opposition to Cheap Labor Legal Immigration

Pickers at the W.T. Ruark Seafood Co., in Hoopers Island, Maryland.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Neil Munro

Voters overwhelmingly want companies to train and hire Americans before importing more legal immigrants or visa workers.

But liberals are far more likely than conservatives to say Congress should allow companies to import more immigrants to take jobs sought by U.S. graduates and sidelined workers, according to Rasmussen’s December survey of 1,250 likely voters.

The survey asked voters:

When businesses say they are having trouble finding Americans to take jobs in construction, manufacturing, hospitality and other service work, what is generally best for the country? Is it better for businesses to raise the pay and try harder to recruit [Americans]?

Sixty percent of likely voters agreed it is “better for businesses to raise the pay and try harder to recruit non-working Americans even if it causes prices to rise.”

Just 22 percent of Americans, including 28 percent of liberals and 16 percent of conservatives, say “better for the government to bring in new foreign workers to help keep business costs and prices down.”

Seventeen percent said they were “not sure.”

The Rasmussen survey also asked the respondents: “Should Congress increase the number of foreign workers taking higher-skill U.S. jobs, or does the country already have enough talented people to train and recruit for most of those jobs?

Sixty-one percent of likely voters agreed that “the country already has enough talented people to train and recruit for most of those jobs.” That pro-Americans perspective was backed by 73 percent of Republicans and 72 percent of conservatives, but only 48 percent of Democrats and 39 percent of liberals.

Just  27 percent of voters — including 21 percent of conservatives, 42 percent of liberals, and 38 percent of Democrats — said Congress should “increase the number of foreign workers taking higher-skill U.S. jobs.”

The answers showed that a plurality of liberals — 42 percent to 39 percent — prefer to import foreign graduates than to help American graduates get better jobs, pay, and training. The growing support for cheap labor migration reflects the growing support among “woke” Democrats for the migration-induced “demographic change” that is helping Democrats to win more elections.

The public’s deep hostility to outsourcing helps to explain why many legislators are so reluctant to publicly vote for business’s demands for more foreign workers for jobs in farmwork, labor, or college graduate work. For example, GOP Sen. Mike Lee has been unable to clear away opposition to his S.386 bill which would encourage more graduates from India to take jobs from American graduates.

But this strong public opposition to wage-cutting migration also co-exists with a sympathetic attitude to migrants, even towards illegal migrants.

This sympathy is spurred by pro-migrant media coverage, but also by many Americans’ respect for hard-working migrants. For example, 45 percent of likely voters said they favor “giving lifetime work permits to most of the estimated 12 million illegal residents of all ages who currently reside in the United States.”

However, 51 percent oppose an amnesty — often because many Americans recognize the likely impact on wages.

The race of respondents had a modest impact on the work-related answers.

For example, 62 percent of whites, 57 percent of Hispanics, and 52 percent of blacks agreed that it is “better for businesses to raise the pay and try harder to recruit non-working Americans, even if it causes prices to rise.”

The 61 percent of likely voters who agreed that “the country already has enough talented people to train and recruit for most of those jobs” included 63 percent of whites, 55 percent of Hispanics, and 54 percent of blacks.

Education status had modest impacts.

The importation of more foreign graduates is opposed by 56 percent of people with college degrees and by 66 percent of people without college degrees.

Thirty-one percent of people with college degrees agreed that the government should “increase the number of foreign workers taking higher-skill U.S. jobs.”

The number is relatively high, given that business groups lower Americans’ salaries by keeping a workforce of roughly 1.5 million visa workers in college-level jobs throughout the United States.

Many respondents said they were not sure which answers they preferred. The “not sure” respondents likely include people who do not care and people who want to conceal their views. Evangelical Christians were the least likely to give a “not sure” answer.

Read the survey here.

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