Public Ignorance and Misinformation About Immigration

A new study shows it is widespread on several issues, in ways that bolster restrictionism.

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Widespread political ignorance is a serious problem that both major-party presidential candidates are trying to exploit. A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds extensive ignorance on the key issue of immigration. The study finds large numbers of people believe misinformation about immigration, while rejecting true statements about it.

For example, 51% believe it is "definitely true" or "probably true" that "Immigrants are causing an increase in violent crime in the U.S" (48% say this is definitely or probably false). In reality, immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, have much lower violent crime rates than native-born citizens. Similarly, 44% believe it is "definitely true" or "probably true" that "Immigrants are taking jobs and causing an increase in unemployment for people born in the U.S" (56% think this is definitely or probably false).  Most economists conclude that immigration does not increase unemployment among natives, and deportation of undocumented immigrants actually destroys more jobs for native-born workers than it creates than it creates (see also here).

The KFF study also finds that 59% believe it is false or probably false that "Undocumented immigrants pay billions of dollars in U.S. taxes every year" (40% think it is true or probably true). The truth is undocumented immigrants pay almost $100 billion in taxes per year, most of that going to the federal government.

The KFF survey does find respondents overwhelmingly get one point right: 84% believe it is "true" or "probably true" that "[i]mmigrants help fill labor shortages in certain industries like agriculture, construction, and health care." These are indeed all industries where immigrants are major contributors. A recent study finds that deportation of undocumented migrants reduces housing construction and thereby increases housing costs.  Immigrants are also disproportionately represented in health care, filling many critical needs. The same is true in agriculture.

There is a possible flaw in the KFF crime question. I think the intent of the question and the way most readers probably interpret it is to ask whether immigration increases the crime rate. But, read literally, it could potentially be interpreted as asking whether immigrants commit any violent crimes at all. If a million immigrants come in and even one commits a violent crime, that could be considered an "increase" in violent crime in the sense that it  increases the total number of violent crimes committed on US soil, even if the crime rate goes down substantially. I suspect most respondents are not interpreting the question that way. If they were, we would not see a massive partisan split in responses, with the vast majority of Republicans saying immigrants do increase violent crime, while most Democrats take the opposite position. Almost everyone presumably recognizes that some immigrants (like some members of virtually any large group) do commit violent crimes, even if the rate is low. But it's possible that the result here is skewed by a minority of respondents interpreting the question very literally, and thereby giving different answers than they would if they realized it was about crime rates.

Previous studies also find widespread ignorance on immigration policy issues, including the number of immigrants (voters tend to greatly overestimate it), their crime rate (ditto), and more.

Overall, public ignorance about immigration likely increases restrictionist sentiment. If many people realized that immigrants have low crime rates, pay more into the public fisc than they take out, and do not increase unemployment, public opinion would likely shift in a more pro-immigration direction. These false perceptions aren't the only possible justifications for immigration restrictions. But they are important considerations for many voters.

Obviously, there are other issues where ignorance skews public opinion in a more left-wing direction. Left-wing voters are far from immune to ignorance and bias. But that in no way mitigates the harm caused by ignorance on the right (and vice versa). Ultimately, political ignorance is a widespread problem on both sides of the political spectrum. It leads to both parties offering worse policies than they likely would otherwise.

There is no easy solution to the problem of political ignorance. But I assess a range of possible options in a recent article on "Top-Down and Bottom-Up Solutions to the Problem of Political Ignorance, and in my book Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter.