Understanding Americans' Attitudes Towards Immigrants: An Overview

Beginning in 2020, the IIR conducted an ambitious survey project aimed at understanding how Americans feel about immigrants and why. We surveyed approximately 600 respondents in each of seven metropolitan areas: Baltimore-Washington, Boston, Detroit, Miami, Philadelphia, San Jose, and Seattle. All surveys were conducted online.

Surveys were conducted between late 2020 and summer 2021 with a focus on three issues:

• The frequency and quality of contact with specific immigrant groups
• Attitudes about immigrants and immigration in general
• Views on the role played by immigrants during the COVID-19 pandemic

The main finding is: Frequent and friendly local contact with any immigrants is associated with a lower likelihood that an individual sees immigration in the United States as a whole as a problem.

The implication for immigrant advocacy groups is clear: think about how to create local opportunities for frequent and friendly interaction as these can lead to changing views on immigrants at the national level.

Click on each of the seven cities to learn the results:

Methodology and Note on Race and Ethnicity

Reported results are weighted to account for any differences in the demographic characteristics of the survey sample and the makeup of the metro area based on U.S. Census Bureau 2020 5-year data. The U.S. Census Bureau typically asks respondents to separately report their race and whether or not they are Hispanic.  Hispanics can be of any race and often selected “other” for race. We follow that convention: respondents were asked to separately report their race and if they were Hispanic. In the results, we compare the frequency and quality of interaction that people have with native-born persons based on their race and with foreign-born individuals according to their race and whether or not they are Hispanic. These patterns of interaction are then broken out according to the race of the respondent, and Hispanics are included in their race category. 

Similarly, where Asians are a relatively small part of the population, Asians are included with the “other” race group. However, in San Jose and Seattle, where the Asian populations make up a larger share of the population, Asian is treated as a separate race category.

Based on the sample size of approximately 600 persons for each metropolitan area, we could not always report results that consistently differentiated by race and ethnicity. The table below provides insight into how these patterns vary by each of the metropolitan areas.

Metropolitan Areas by Race and Hispanic Ethnicity Combined

Source: Baltimore-DC, Boston, Detroit, Miami, Philadelphia, San Jose, Seattle