Pro-Immigration Survey Backfires, Shows the Public Wants ‘America First’ Policy

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Neil Munro

Strong majorities of Americans believe U.S. migration policy should first serve the interests of their fellow Americans, according to an opinion survey by the pro-migration Cato Institute.

“Nearly two-thirds (63%) of Americans say it’s more important when making immigration policy to consider what ‘benefits the United States and its current citizens,'” said the April 27 survey of 2,600 U.S. adults.

But, the survey added, “thirty‐​seven percent (37%) believe it’s more important to consider what benefits the most people regardless of nationality.”

Conservatives back the America first view by more than 80 percent, while the critical, swing-voting, election-deciding “moderates” strongly favor the pro-America perspective by 61 percent to 38 percent, says the survey, which is titled “E Pluribus Unum: Findings from the Cato Institute 2021 Immigration and Identity National Survey.”

The survey is important because it helps the public recognize that the vast majority of their fellow Americans also oppose cheap labor migration into their jobs and neighborhoods. Amid many pro-migration reports from corporate-owned media, Americans have long opposed migration because it shifts opportunity and wealth from working Americans towards Wall Street investors and the coastal states and is dangerous to migrants and damages their home countries.

The crosstabs show that Democrats and liberals tend to elevate the interests of migrants over the preferences and needs of Americans. For example, 68 percent of “very liberal” and “58 percent” of “somewhat liberal” voters would set U.S. immigration policy by what ” benefits the most people regardless of nationality,” according to the crosstabs of the survey. Overall, President Joe Biden’s 2021 voters picked the globalized view by 56 to 44 percent.

The Cato survey also showed that the most pro-migration respondents in their survey also prefer to live in neighborhoods with people like them instead of the diverse communities that are being imposed on Americans by Biden’s pro-migration policies.

For example, 88 percent of the “very liberal” respondents said they would prefer to live in a neighborhood where most people had  “similar values and sentiments as you.” Similarly, 84 percent said they want to live in neighborhoods “where people … speak the same language as you.”

The Cato survey did not explore the apparent contradiction between the liberals’ much-declared preference for an open-borders migration policy and their quiet personal preference for non-diverse neighborhoods.

Unsurprisingly, the poll shows that first-generation migrants are more pro-American than “very liberal” Americans, with just 39 percent of recent immigrants backing the globalist policy.

Second-generation immigrants, such as the American-born sons and daughters of new immigrants, flip towards liberals, with 55 percent favoring  global benefits over American concerns.

But most Americans of Latino ancestry back the pro-American perspective, by 55 percent to 45 percent.

The survey is useful because the results often contradict the pro-migration goals of the Cato Institute. For example, the Cato press release touted parts of the survey that are claimed to show public support for easy migration of foreign workers:

The country’s history of immigration is deeply rooted in the American consciousness: 53% say that the “ability to immigrate to a new country is a human right for all people.” Democrats (72%) and libertarians (55%) are more likely than independents (45%) and Republicans (33%) to agree. At the same time, only 33% of the public favors removing “all restrictions on immigration” after the pandemic is over. Strong liberals stand out with 72% who favor open borders, while 54% of moderate liberals and 82% of conservatives oppose.

For many years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

This opposition is multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, intra-Democratic, rational, and recognizes the solidarity Americans owe to each other.

The voter opposition to elite-backed economic migration coexists with support for legal immigrants and some sympathy for illegal migrants. But only a minority of Americans — mostly leftists — embrace the many skewed polls and articles pushing the 1950’s corporate “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

The deep public opposition to labor migration is built on the widespread recognition that legal and illegal migration moves money away from most Americans’ pocketbooks and families.

Migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from children to their parents, from homebuyers to investors, from technology to stoop labor, from red states to blue states, and from the central states to the coastal states such as New York.

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