Last month, at least 53 migrants were found dead in an abandoned truck in San Antonio — one of the deadliest smuggling events in modern U.S. history. For many, this tragedy exposes the human costs of the country’s harsh restrictions on legal immigration. Some polls have recently reported that Americans have grown friendlier to immigration over the past decades. For the first time since Gallup started polling on the issue almost 60 years ago, more people say immigration should be increased rather than decreased. That’s a shift from 7 percent in favor of increases and 33 percent in favor of decreases in 1965, with the 2020 numbers suggesting that 34 percent favor increases and 28 percent favor decreases. But U.S. immigration attitudes may not have warmed as much as those numbers suggest. My new research shows that predominantly Democratic voters who support immigration simply do not see the issue as important as do the predominantly Republican voters who oppose it. As a result, opponents remain more politically influential than supporters. Americans’ Support for Immigration Is Even Weaker Than It SeemsIt’s true that a greater proportion of Americans are willing to tell pollsters that they support immigration than before. But that support is still soft. First, the aggregate change does not necessarily mean that individuals have changed their minds on the issue. My research with political scientists Dillon Laaker and Cassidy Reller looks at longitudinal survey data, in which the same respondents were interviewed over a decade. There we found much greater stability in individuals’ immigration attitudes. These attitudes form early in life and reflect deep-seated psychological traits such as openness to experience or ethnocentrism. In other words, if immigration public opinion changes in any significant way, it happens gradually, as older people give way to younger generations with different attitudes. Second, some scholars find that those people who agree to participate in surveys tend to be more liberal and more ideologically extreme than the general population. People’s refusal to participate in public opinion surveys has only increased over the past decades. As a result, recent polls may be overestimating increases in pro-immigration views. But even if more people do favor immigration, they may care about this issue less than those who oppose it — and therefore have less influence on public policy. How I Did My ResearchWhen individuals consider an issue to be personally important, they care more about it than other issues. They are more likely to think frequently and deeply about it, seek information, contact politicians and vote based on their views. Some scholars have recently tried to examine the immigration issue’s importance in public opinion, but high-quality data has often been lacking. I set out to identify all available nationally representative surveys with relevant questions about both immigration views and their importance. According to my analysis of American National Election Studies, Voter Study Group, and Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics data, those who oppose immigration feel more strongly about the issue and are more likely to consider it as both personally and nationally important than those who support it. That’s especially true when the news media are paying more attention to the issue. Immigration Opponents Care More About the Issue Than Immigration SupportersEven though more Americans are telling pollsters that they support immigration, lawmakers hesitate to tackle immigration policy in ways that would make it easier to enter the United States. My research suggests that they’re right to be cautious. Americans who oppose immigration are far more engaged and active on the issue than are immigration supporters.
In fact, given the increased national attention to immigration over the past decades, the number of people who actively oppose immigration has actually increased. Gathered in front of the press corps in South Texas on Tuesday, a Baptist pastor lowered his head and delivered a solemn prayer. Shortly after whispering “amen,” local leadership from multiple border counties began warning of the “invasion.”
Several officials announced Tuesday afternoon that they have declared an invasion at the state’s southern border. Advocates say doing so could potentially grant the state broader border powers. Terrell County Judge Dale Lynn Carruthers on Tuesday claimed that in May alone, 49 “illegals” were apprehended in the pasture behind her house. She then warned that her border community’s some 1,000 residents “live in fear” each day. “I’m here to let you know the invasion is real and that we are doing the best we can with limited manpower,” she said. “Terrell County has the least to offer and the most to lose.” Conservative leaders in Texas and beyond have ramped up attacks on people crossing the border in recent months. While some say the invasion declaration is necessary to safeguard U.S. citizens, critics have widely panned it as a political stunt with potentially deadly consequences. Kinney County Judge Tully Shahan is spearheading the officials’ efforts, having led last year's charge to issue disaster declarations at the county level, The Center Square reports. Gov. Greg Abbott later followed suit and issued disaster declarations for many more. “All strategies remain on the table as Texas continues stepping up in the federal government’s absence," a spokesperson for the governor said by email Tuesday. In part, the spokesperson added: "While President Biden ignores the ever-growing humanitarian crisis, and Congressional members visit the border for photo-ops and then return to Washington to do nothing, Texas has deployed thousands of Texas National Guard soldiers and DPS troopers and spent over $4 billion of Texas taxpayer money to secure our border, including building our own border wall, erecting strategic barriers, and sending significant resources to help our local partners as was mentioned repeatedly in the Brackettville press conference." But Efrén C. Olivares, immigrant justice deputy legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said he “disagrees with the entire framing.” The way he sees it, the "invasion" declaration is nothing more than another political stunt ahead of the midterm elections. “To refer to anything as an ‘invasion’ … has this militarized connotation to it, as if we are at war with immigrants,” he said. “And even though that might be what some of these anti-immigrant elected officials would like, that is very much not the case.” Olivares said border-crossers are often women and children fleeing persecution, poverty and life-threatening scenarios. They come to the border seeking protection and opportunity. Tuesday’s “invasion” declaration holds no legal weight, said Savannah Tarbet, press manager for the Texas Civil Rights Project. As part of a political stunt, officials have deployed racist rhetoric to sow division into the very border communities they’re supposed to protect. “The United States prides itself on our history as a refuge and a nation comprised primarily of immigrants,” she said via email. “There is absolutely no basis in our history for viewing families, children and adults coming to the country to seek protection and opportunity as an 'invasion.'” In late June, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the current presidential administration can end the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” program. The policy forced border-crossers seeking asylum to stay in Mexico while their cases slowly moved through the U.S. immigration courts. It also thrust certain asylum seekers into violent situations, squalid living conditions and other threatening scenarios. Abbott and other Texas Republicans have buckled down on their anti-immigrant rhetoric ahead of November’s midterms. The governor recently cautioned against a so-called “caravan” supposedly heading to the border, a notion refuted by immigration experts. He's also touted his controversial security initiative Operation Lone Star as necessary to keeping the state safe. But some critics have slammed the effort, which has deployed Department of Public Safety and Texas National Guard officers to the border, as little more than an expensive and ineffective political exercise. In a March 4 video, Abbott bragged about the one-year anniversary of the endeavor. “Operation Lone Star has apprehended more than 200,000 illegal immigrants,” the governor claimed. “That includes more than 9,000 felony charges and more than 11,000 criminal arrests.” Abbott has pitched himself as a tough-on-immigration politician, one who’s more committed to border security than the federal government is. He recently blamed President Joe Biden for the demise of dozens of migrants discovered in an abandoned tractor-trailer in San Antonio. Express Entry: Canada Invites 636 PNP Candidates as Minister Offers Date for Next All-program Draw6/23/2022
Canada invited 636 Express Entry candidates to apply for permanent residence on June 22. All invited candidates had previously received a nomination from a Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) and had a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) of at least 752. The minimum score was relatively high because Express Entry candidates get an automatic 600 points added to their score when they receive a provincial nomination. Without the nomination, the lowest-scoring candidates would have had 152 base points. In the previous draw, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) invited 932 Express Entry candidates with scores of at least 796. Could This be the Last PNP Draw?Yesterday, CIC News spoke with Immigration Minister Sean Fraser at the Collision Conference in Toronto, where the minister said IRCC is “tentatively” looking to resume all-program draws on July 6. This past April, Fraser announced that Express Entry invitations for Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP) and Canadian Experience Class (CEC) candidates will resume by early July, but at that time did not offer a date. Since September 2021, IRCC has only held draws for PNP candidates. IRCC has temporarily paused draws for CEC and FSWP candidates to reduce the Express Entry backlog, which was exacerbated by the pandemic. IRCC’s application inventory of the three Express Entry programs has improved since the announcement. As of June 1, it stands at 31,603 persons compared to 40,889 at the end of April. What is Express Entry?Express Entry is the application management system for Canada’s three most popular immigration programs: the Canadian Experience Class, the Federal Skilled Worker Program, and the Federal Skilled Trades Program. PNP candidates in the Express Entry pool have already qualified for at least one of these programs. Express Entry uses a points-based system, the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS), to rank candidates’ profiles. The top-scoring candidates receive an Invitation to Apply (ITA), and can then apply for permanent residency. |