The Hidden American Immigration Consensus: A Conjoint Analysis of Attitudes toward Immigrants

TLDR

Prior research on American immigration attitudes often conflates questions about which immigrants to admit and how many to admit. The study isolates attitudes toward which immigrants to admit by conducting a conjoint experiment that tests nine immigrant attributes. The experiment measures support for admission across these attributes using a two‑wave, population‑based survey. Americans favor educated immigrants in high‑status jobs and disfavor those lacking work plans, unauthorized entrants, Iraqis, or non‑English speakers, with little variation across respondents’ own education, partisanship, labor market position, or ethnocentrism, revealing a broad consensus that aligns with norms‑based and sociotropic explanations and challenges threat‑based theories.

Abstract

Many studies have examined Americans' immigration attitudes. Yet prior research frequently confounds multiple questions, including which immigrants to admit and how many to admit. To isolate attitudes on the former question, we use a conjoint experiment that simultaneously tests the influence of nine immigrant attributes in generating support for admission. Drawing on a two‐wave, population‐based survey, we demonstrate that Americans view educated immigrants in high‐status jobs favorably, whereas they view those who lack plans to work, entered without authorization, are Iraqi, or do not speak English unfavorably. Strikingly, Americans' preferences vary little with their own education, partisanship, labor market position, ethnocentrism, or other attributes. Beneath partisan divisions over immigration lies a broad consensus about who should be admitted to the country. The results are consistent with norms‐based and sociotropic explanations of immigration attitudes. This consensus points to limits in both theories emphasizing economic and cultural threats, and sheds new light on an ongoing policy debate.