New Poll Shows Support for Immigration Hits Two Year Low

Support for immigration has hit a two year low according to a new poll released on Monday from Gallup.

A writeup in Forbes broke down the key elements of the poll.

“27% of respondents said immigration should be expanded, marking a downward shift from a peak of 34% that supported increasing immigration in 2020 and breaking a 65-year steady rise in support for immigration, according to the poll of 1,013 people conducted between July 5 and July 26.

38% said immigration numbers should decrease, up from 28% in 2020, while 31% believe it should be kept at the present level.

Meanwhile, opposition to expanding immigration, which had been dwindling since a high point of 65% in 1995, shot back up to 2016 levels (38%) in the new poll.”

The full results of the poll can be read in a writeup on Gallup’s site.

In their writeup, they indicated much of the concern over immigration comes from self identified Republicans.

“The mounting desire for decreased immigration in recent years has been driven mainly by Republicans, whose preference for reducing immigration is up 21 points since June 2020, when 48% expressed this. This contrasts with a five-point increase among independents, to 33%, and a four-point increase among Democrats, to 17%.

Longer term, views on immigration policy have become increasingly polarized. In 2008, at the end of the George W. Bush administration, 46% of Republicans and 39% of Democrats wanted immigration decreased — a seven-percentage-point difference. By 2009, that gap had widened to 17 points, and it has since stretched to the current 52 points.”

In sum, Americans seem to be growing increasingly weary over mass immigration. This shouldn’t be surprising considering we’re in the midst of the worst border crisis in history.

It is interesting though that this is potentially having some type of effect on their thoughts regarding legal immigration.

This poll follows a general trend indicating weariness with immigration in 2022.

Back in June we blogged about a poll from the Economist/YouGove that showed 62% of Americans believed immigration was on the wrong track.

Another Gallup poll from April of this year indicated that concern over immigration was at a two decade high.

We’ve had decades of mass immigration and unsustainable growth. It seems like Americans may be slowly waking up to that fact.