85 Percent of Black Americans Want Less Immigration, 79 Percent of Whites Agree

by John Whitaker, NEE
black americans are the racial group most opposed to mass immigration

African Americans are the Racial Group Most Opposed to Immigration

A new Harvard-Harris poll shows that 85 percent of black Americans want a reduction in immigration levels to 1 million or lower.  Also interesting: more Americans favored zero immigration, than wanted to increase immigration levels.
For context, in 2017 over 1.4 million legal immigrants arrived in America, while the number of illegals is unknown.
This means that black Americans—not white as is commonly stated—are the racial group most opposed to immigration.  The Washington Free Beaconsummarizes the report’s findings nicely:
The plurality of respondents, 35 percent, think that there should be between 1 and 250,000 legal immigrants arriving to the United States per year. A net 12 percent want to see immigration increased to 1.5 million people per year or more, while nine percent of Americans think that there should be no new legal immigrants.
Plurality preference for between 1 and 250,000 new immigrants a year persists across white, Hispanic, and black Americans, as well as moderates and self-identified Democrats. . .
Americans prefer a system of prioritizing would-be legal immigrants based on their ability to contribute, based on their education and skills, over one based on immigrants having relatives in the United States, 79 to 21 percent. That includes a majority of white (79 percent), Hispanic (72 percent), and black (85 percent) citizens, as well as majorities of Democrats (72 percent), liberals (65 percent),  and Clinton voters (72 percent).
The poll clearly shows that the majority of Americans are against mass immigration, and that support for this crosses racial and ideological lines.
This is somewhat surprising, as the Democratic Party has positioned itself as the “immigration party”, and is absolutely dedicated to preserving the doctrine of “open borders” at any cost.  However, this position seems untenable in the long run—the voter base eventually catches up to the rhetoric, and at that point the Democrats will be finished.

Of course, these findings are consistent with other polling done on the topic of immigration.  For example, research done by Pulse Opinion Research found that voters in “swing states” favored comprehensive immigration reform by a 3:1 margin—immigration reform is the winning-ticket.
 

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Why are Black Americans Against Immigration?

Black Americans oppose immigration because they are the racial group most likely to be harmed by mass immigration. how immigrants entered america, raise act, immigration reform
As you can see in the adjacent graph, the vast majority of immigrants coming to America come for non-economic reasons: 44 percent of all immigrants are “immediate relatives of US citizens” and a further 20 percent are “family-sponsored preferences”.  Only 14 percent of immigrants are chosen for purely economic reasons.
The majority of these immigrants, therefore, lack economic skills, and therefore end up working in relatively low-skilled occupations.  Likewise, they are a net drain on America’s welfare apparatus.
This puts pressure on black American families, who are more likely than are white Americans to work in low-skilled occupations.  Therefore, they are the ones who bear the brunt of immigrant labor competition.  Likewise, the government services that many black families use are spread more thinly.
Here’s a brief survey of the data, as found in our piece on the economics of immigration:
A recent, and extremely comprehensive study produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine looked at the impact of mass immigration on America’s economy.  The study is important for two reasons.  First, it found that immigration has negatively impacted wages and employment opportunities for American citizens—especially those in lower income brackets.  Of course, this is not surprising for anyone familiar with the economic principle of supply and demand, but it does come as a major shock to liberals who are now being forced to choose between their traditional voter base (blue collar workers and ethnic minorities) and recent immigrants.
Second, the study supports the RAISE Act’s underlying premise: not all immigrants are equal in terms of their economic value.  Although the researchers concluded that immigration has historically provided a (minor) net economic benefit to America, it also found that nearly 100 percent of immigration-driven economic growth accrued to the immigrants themselves—the pie got bigger, the slices did not.
Likewise, the researchers found that nearly half of all immigrants were a net drain on the economy, and were balanced out by the other half.  Specifically, most of those who arrived to America via the process of chain migration, as well as asylum seekers, cost a net present value of $170,000.  Net present value simply means how much money the government would need to invest today, at a yield of inflation plus three percent, to pay for said immigrant’s tax deficit over the course of their lifetime.
Of course, the government does not do this—it spends only as it receives.  Therefore,  net present value generates an artificially low estimate.  According to the Heritage Foundation, each non-economic immigrant more realistically costs a net of $476,000 in welfare payouts.  This means that at current immigration levels, the next ten year’s worth of low-skilled immigrants will cost American taxpayers a net $1.9 trillion (in constant 2012 dollars) over their lifetime.
What the data basically shows is that the majority of immigrants are a net drain on the welfare state.  This means that citizens must pay higher taxes in order to support the over-burdened system, and those who already depended upon the system are hurt.  Likewise, immigrants compete with Americans for jobs—particularly at the lower end of the employment spectrum, ie. black Americans.
You can have a welfare state, or open borders—never both.  Most Americans, black, white, and Hispanic know this.  It’s a shame our leaders don’t.

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1 thought on “85 Percent of Black Americans Want Less Immigration, 79 Percent of Whites Agree”

  1. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the family sponsored and ‘moving due to US citizen’ relatives should be put under “economic” instead. If the economy and opportunities were better in the other country, the US citizens would be paying the exit tax and emigrating there. Surveys can often illicit the answers that people think will give them a better chance at something where being honest might be perceived as lowering their odds.
    The simplest jobs are rapidly being automated as the government raises the minimum wage. For groups that have trapped themselves in a lower economic area, losing those jobs makes it harder to get job experience and move up the ladder. With the entry level jobs becoming scarcer, the last thing people will want is to have more competition for what’s left. Stocking shelves at the supermarket overnight isn’t rocket science and is one of those jobs that an immigrant with limited language skills can take on with only a little training. It’s also a good part time job for somebody going to college.
    The US economy has greatly matured since the days when boat loads of immigrants were passing through Ellis Island. It also takes a more educated and sophisticated person to be able to compete and be successful. It doesn’t do the US any good to allow vast numbers of people with limited or no education, no English language skills and a vastly different cultural background to emigrate to the US. It’s not hard to allow a few each year, but they need to be self-sufficient from day one. When the Wall fell, there were lots of Eastern Europeans with advanced degrees, language skills (in several languages) and a culture that wasn’t too different and therefore, were fine to welcome and even encourage to emigrate. I’ve worked with a few former Russian engineers and scientists that moved to the US and they were very smart. The best thing was that is was easy for them to get well paying jobs immediately.

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