With immigration sitting as a top issue for both candidates and voters heading into the 2020 election, University of Michigan researchers have released survey data breaking down immigration attitudes in four Michigan cities.
The Detroit Metro Area Communities Study and Michigan Metro Areas Community Study surveyed residents in Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids and Ypsilanti on whether they believed legal immigration to the United States should be easier or harder.
Overall, 39% of residents in the four cities’ metro areas believed it should be easier for foreigners to legally immigrate to the U.S., while 16% said policies should remain the same.
Twenty-six percent of respondents said legal immigration should be harder, while 19% were unsure if immigration should be easier or harder.
When looking at each city independently, residents of Ypsilanti and Grand Rapids were more likely to favor making legal immigration easier than residents of Flint and Detroit. 45% of Ypsilanti residents and 44% of Grand Rapids residents felt it should be easier for foreigners to legally immigrate to the U.S. while 37% of Detroit residents and 29% of Flint residents holding the same view.
Additionally, while 29% of Ypsilanti residents and 23% of Grand Rapids felt legal immigration should be harder, 26% of Detroiters and 31% of Flint residents felt the same way.
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Residents of Flint and Detroit also showed more uncertainty in their attitudes toward immigration than residents in Grand Rapids and Ypsilanti.
Researchers noted that these differences in attitudes can likely be explained by differences in education, with residents in municipalities where a higher share of the population has a bachelor’s degree being more supportive of easier legal immigration.
Thirty-seven percent of Ypsilanti residents and 39.3% of Grand Rapids residents surveyed held a bachelor’s degree compared to 16.9% of Detroit residents and 12% of Flint residents.
Across the four cities, 55% of residents with a bachelor’s degree supported making legal immigration easier, while 34% of residents without a bachelor’s degree held the same view. Residents who did not have a bachelor’s degree were also more likely to believe it should be harder for foreigners to immigrate legally.
However, the issue brief also notes that residents in the four cities without a bachelor’s degree were also more likely to say they were uncertain on their views on immigration policy than those with bachelor’s degrees.
Mara Ostfeld, faculty lead of the Detroit Metro Area Communities Study noted that former President Donald Trump and other anti-immigrant push narratives that immigrants pose an economic threat to U.S. nationals, despite data showing that immigrants are more likely to create jobs than native-born Americans.
Income and education have the same kind of relationship to attitudes on immigration, Ostfeld said, so these narratives around immigrants posing an economic threat will always be felt by individuals who are economically vulnerable and will impact their attitudes.
Ostfeld also said the prominence of immigration discussions could explain why 19% of residents surveyed were uncertain of their opinion on immigration policy.
“Because it’s been such a salient issue, people are increasingly familiar with both sides of it. There’s this strong argument that there’s this economic threat, and there’s this other feature that these are people who are just like us, and if you felt like your kid was in an unsafe place, you would probably do the exact same thing,” Ostfeld said.
Proximity to immigrants was also shown to influence resident’s attitudes on immigration policy, with U.S.-born residents living in census tracts with a higher percentage of foreign-born residents showing more support for easier legal immigration.
“Contact is one of the most powerful things at building empathy and support for a group that one may not be familiar with, and [you] find really powerful support for that across social science literatures and even in our own survey of a variety of Detroit neighborhoods,” Ostfeld said.
According to the issue brief, for every 10% of a census tract that is foreign born, there was a 3% increase on average in support for easier legal immigration.
The narrative that immigrants pose an economic threat also carries tension, Ostfeld said, as voters with lower-levels of education are often the most likely to be in contact with immigrants based on where immigrants tend to move.
Additionally, uncertainty toward immigration policy was slightly higher in areas with lower shares of immigrants, Ostfeld said.
Ostfeld also pointed to the impact that immigration policy will have on Michigan, with the entire state considered a border zone due to its proximity to the Canadian border.
“Every place in Michigan is subject to immigration enforcement. So this is something that will affect the lived experiences of every Michigander,” Ostfeld said.
If Michiganders support making it harder to immigrate, increased immigrant policing or more immigrant enforcement, these are policies that will shape the day-to-day experiences of every Michigander, Ostfeld said.
“That’s also an important question to think about, how people want immigration policy to affect their day to day lives in a variety of ways,” Ostfeld said.
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