Immigration is a top issue in the 2024 election. That’s what residents of 4 Michigan cities think. • Michigan Advance

With immigration a top issue for both candidates and voters in the 2020 election, researchers at the University of Michigan have published survey data Analysis of attitudes toward immigration in four Michigan cities.

The Detroit Metro Area Communities Study and the Michigan Metro Areas Community Study surveyed residents of Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids and Ypsilanti on whether they thought legal immigration to the United States should be easier or more difficult.

Overall, 39 percent of residents in the four cities’ metropolitan areas said it should be easier for foreigners to immigrate to the United States legally, while 16 percent said the policy should remain unchanged.

Twenty-six percent of respondents said legal immigration should be made more difficult, while 19 percent were unsure whether immigration should be easier or more difficult.

Looking at each city individually, residents of Ypsilanti and Grand Rapids were more likely to support making legal immigration easier than residents of Flint and Detroit. Forty-five percent of Ypsilanti residents and 44 percent of Grand Rapids residents said it should be easier for foreigners to immigrate to the U.S. legally, while 37 percent of Detroit residents and 29 percent of Flint residents held the same view.

While 29 percent of Ypsilanti residents and 23 percent of Grand Rapids residents believed legal immigration should be more difficult, 26 percent of Detroit residents and 31 percent of Flint residents felt the same way.

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Residents of Flint and Detroit also expressed greater uncertainty about their attitudes toward immigration than residents of Grand Rapids and Ypsilanti.

The researchers found that these differences in attitudes are likely explained by differences in educational attainment, with residents of communities where a higher proportion of the population had a bachelor’s degree more likely to support easier legal immigration.

Thirty-seven percent of Ypsilanti residents and 39.3% of Grand Rapids residents surveyed had a bachelor’s degree, compared to 16.9% of Detroit residents and 12% of Flint residents.

In all four cities, 55 percent of residents with bachelor’s degrees favored making it easier for foreigners to immigrate legally, while 34 percent of residents without bachelor’s degrees held the same view. Residents without bachelor’s degrees were also more likely to believe that it should be harder for foreigners to immigrate legally.

However, the brief also points out that residents of the four cities without a bachelor’s degree were more likely to say they were unsure about their views on immigration policy than residents with a bachelor’s degree.

Mara Ostfeld, faculty director of the Detroit Metro Area Communities Study, noted that former President Donald Trump and other anti-immigration figures are pushing the narrative that immigrants pose an economic threat to U.S. citizens, even though data shows that Immigrants are more likely to create jobs than native Americans.

Income and education are similarly related to attitudes toward immigration, Ostfeld said. Therefore, narratives that immigrants pose an economic threat will always resonate with economically vulnerable people and affect their attitudes.

Ostfeld also said the importance of immigration discussions could explain why 19 percent of citizens surveyed were unsure of their opinion on immigration policy.

“Because it’s such an important issue, people are increasingly aware of both sides. 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 child was in an unsafe place, you’d probably do exactly the same thing,” Ostfeld said.

Proximity to immigrants has also been shown to influence residents’ attitudes toward immigration policy. U.S.-born residents in census tracts with a higher proportion of foreign-born residents were more likely to support easier legal immigration.

“Contact is one of the most powerful ways to build empathy and support for a group you may not be familiar with, and you find really compelling evidence of that throughout the social science literature and even in our own survey in various neighborhoods in Detroit,” Ostfeld said.

According to the fact sheet, support for facilitating legal immigration increased by an average of 3% for every 10% of a census tract’s foreign-born residents.

The portrayal of immigrants as an economic threat also creates tension, Ostfeld said, because voters with lower levels of education are often the ones most likely to have contact with immigrants because of the places where immigrants tend to move.

In addition, uncertainty regarding immigration policy is somewhat higher in areas with a lower proportion of immigrants, Ostfeld said.