Public university students’ preferences for restrictionist or lenient immigration policies

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Abstract

Few attempts have been made to examine the effects of perceived threats that immigrants pose to host society on young people’s preferences for restrictionist or lenient immigration policies. Moreover, the existing literature is scarce on whether such perceived threats mediate the relationship between previously identified demographic antecedents such as gender, race or age and preferences for certain immigration policies. To address these gaps, this study examines direct and mediating effects of perceived economic, cultural and security threats on preferences for lenient or restrictionist immigration policies. Using a sample college students' survey data (N = 604) on their attitudes towards immigration, our findings of logistic regression analysis show that the three dimensions of perceived threat were all positively associated with preference for hardline immigration policies. In addition, regardless of inclusion of perceived threats in the logistic model, being Republican was a consistent positive predictor of the hardline immigration agenda, while female was a consistent negative one. Finally, the results of path analysis of Structural Equation Modeling indicate mediating effects of cultural threat on the relationships between political affiliation (Republican and Independent) and race (Latino) and support for hardline immigration policies.

Introduction

Immigration is a prominent topic in the United States and political discourse is polarized:

Should U.S. immigration policies be more liberal or more restrictive, and how should the United States effectively secure its borders? Should the millions of unauthorized immigrants already in the country face deportation or have access to a path to citizenship? The 2016 presidential campaign cycle and the subsequent election of Donald J. Trump began an era of “America First,” which frames immigrants as physical, economic, and cultural threats to U.S. citizens (Wright & Esses, 2019) and exploits public fears of terrorism and violent crime (Adelman, Kubrin, Ousey, & Reid, 2018). This study is uniquely situated to gage whether and how this era has impacted our youngest voting generations’ attitudes toward immigrants in the United States.

Section snippets

Attitudes toward immigration

Although the United States is sometimes called a "nation of immigrants," many people in the U.S. have ambivalent attitudes toward immigration (Reyna, Dobria, & Wetherell, 2013; Segovia & Defever, 2010). Likewise, scholars do not agree on the predictors of attitudes toward immigrants and immigration in general. For example, attitudes can be positive or negative depending on where the immigrant group is from (Hainmueller & Hopkins, 2015; Reyna et al., 2013), or whether the immigrants are or are

Current study

Academic literature on perceived threat has focused primarily on the relationship between perceived threats and attitudes toward immigrants (Esses et al., 1998; González et al., 2008; Murray & Marx, 2013; Reyna et al., 2013; Stephan et al., 2000, 2005; Ward & Masgoret, 2006), Fewer studies examined potential relationship between perceived threats and support for particular immigration policies (Citrin et al., 1997; Gerber et al., 2017). In addition, the conceptualization of immigrant threat

Participants

This study is a secondary data analysis. The data were obtained from convenience sampling of college students at a public university in Lowell Massachusetts with a diverse student body. Participants completed a survey on their attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policies in the spring of 2015 (N = 241) and the spring of 2018 (N = 363). Our analyses are based on pooled data from those two time-points (N = 604). 59.8 % participants described themselves as White, 16.2 % as Latinx, 16.3 %

Outcome variable

Our outcome variable measured students' preference for immigration policies using the question "What do you think should be the top priority of an immigration reform?" Choose one policy from 'securing the border (Border),' 'deporting undocumented immigrants (Deporting),' 'providing path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (Citizenship),' 'increasing the number of VISAs available for skilled workers (VISAs),' and 'keeping families together (Families).' For an easier interpretation of our

Analyses

First, correlations of all study variables were examined. (Table 2). Second, because our outcome variable is binary in nature, we employed a logistic regression in which the pro-immigration policy was set as the reference category and was contrasted with restrictionist immigration policy. We used SPSS 24. In model 1, only factors affecting attitudes towards immigration previously identified in literature were included in the model. In model 2, security, cultural and economic threats were

Correlation analysis

Table 2 presents parameter estimates for correlations of all study variables. First, the three concepts of threat were intercorrelated with each other. Specifically, economic threat was moderately related to cultural treat (r = .650, p < .001) and security threat (r = .656, p < .001). Cultural threat and security threat were also moderately associated with each other (r = .662, p < .001). Second, White, Republican, and other political inclinations (e.g., Green Party) were positively correlated

Discussion

This study examined whether perceived threats that immigrants may pose in the United States are positively associated with public Massachusetts university students’ preferences for lenient or restrictionist immigration policies and whether the perceived threats mediate the relationships between the university students’ demographic factors and their preferences for particular immigration policies.

First, given the multi-dimensionality of the threat concept, this study expands prior research by

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