A recent Napolitan poll found that 84 percent of registered voters believe that “illegal immigration is bad for the United States.” Just 12 percent described it as good. The poll also found that 71 percent support legal immigration and view it as beneficial to our country.
The latter finding by the poll is misleading because it lacks context. Even most immigration restrictionists believe that legal immigration, at least at some level, can be beneficial. The relevant question is whether legal immigration, as we have it today, is serving our national interest.
For almost twenty-five years, legal immigration has averaged around a million people a year, the highest sustained level in our history. Also, this surge of immigration has been more ethnically and culturally diverse than ever before. Such numbers and diversity reduce the prospects for assimilation.
Still another problem with legal immigration now is that it generally doesn’t select for skills and talents which could be useful to our country. Most legal immigrants come in on the basis of their family ties to previous immigrants.
A poll which appraises its respondents of the aforementioned realities of legal immigration, as it presently exists, probably would find that most of them would not have a favorable opinion.
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