WASHINGTON
(Pew Hispanic Center) December 13, 2007
— Hispanics in the United States are
feeling a range of negative effects from
the increased public attention and
stepped up enforcement measures that
have accompanied the growing national
debate over undocumented immigration.
Just over
half of all Hispanic adults in the U.S.
worry that they, a family member or a
close friend could be deported, a new
nationwide survey of Hispanics by the
Pew Hispanic Center has found. Nearly
two-thirds say the failure of Congress
to enact an immigration reform bill has
made life more difficult for all
Hispanics. Smaller numbers (ranging from
about one-in-eight to one-in-four) say
the heightened attention to immigration
issues has had a specific negative
effect on them personally. These effects
include more difficulty finding work or
housing; less likelihood of using
government services or traveling abroad;
and more likelihood of being asked to
produce documents to prove their
immigration status.
However,
when respondents were asked about
changes in the overall situation of
Hispanics in this country in the past
year, no consensus view emerged. About
one-in-three say things have gotten
worse, about one-in-four say things have
gotten better, and about four-in-ten say
there has been no change. Despite their
concerns about the impact of the
immigration debate, Hispanics are
generally content with their own lives
and upbeat about the long-term prospects
for Hispanic children. Nearly
eight-in-ten respondents, for example,
say they are very (45%) or somewhat
(33%) confident that Hispanic children
growing up now will have better jobs and
more money than they have.
Hispanics
are the nation's largest minority group,
numbering 47 million (about 15.5% of the
total U.S. population). About a quarter
of Hispanic adults are unauthorized
immigrants, most of them arriving as
part of a heavy wave of immigration that
began gathering force in the 2070s.
Twice in the past two years, the U.S.
Congress tried but failed to pass
comprehensive legislation to deal with
the problem of undocumented immigration.
However, federal, state and local
governments have pressed forward with
hundreds of new enforcement bills,
regulations and procedures — including
stepped up deportations, more workplace
raids, and restrictions on access to
driver's licenses and other government
services and benefits.
The survey
finds that Hispanics oppose these
enforcement measures, often by lopsided
margins. Three quarters (75%) disapprove
of workplace raids; some 79% prefer that
local police not take an active role in
identifying undocumented immigrants; and
some 55% disapprove of states checking
for immigration status before issuing
driver's licenses. By contrast,
non-Hispanics are much more supportive
of all these policies, with a slight
majority favoring workplace raids and a
heavy majority favoring driver's license
checks.
In
addition to this wide variance in views
between Hispanics and non-Hispanics, the
survey finds less pronounced — but still
significant — gaps within the Hispanic
community on a range of matters, from
perceptions about discrimination to
attitudes about undocumented immigration
to support for tougher enforcement
measures. For example, on questions
about enforcement policies, native-born
Hispanics take positions that are closer
to those of the rest of the U.S.
population than do foreign-born
Hispanics. Also, the native born are
less likely than the foreign born to
report a negative personal impact from
the heightened attention to immigration
issues.
Likewise,
Hispanics who are not citizens feel much
more vulnerable in the current
environment than do Hispanics who are
citizens. They are about twice as likely
as Hispanic citizens to worry about
deportation and to feel a specific
negative personal impact from the
heightened attention to undocumented
immigration. Non-citizens account for
44% of the total adult Hispanic
population. Of these non-citizen
Hispanic adults, an estimated 55% are
undocumented immigrants and the other
45% are legal aliens.
Hispanics
also have widely varying assessments
about the amount of attention local
officials and political leaders in their
communities are paying to the issue of
undocumented immigration. A third say a
lot, but four-in-ten say not too much,
and one-in-five say none at all. These
variances likely reflect the reality
the issue has become politically
heated in some parts of the country but
not in others.
Whatever
new vulnerability Hispanics feel in the
present political and policy
environment, the survey finds little
evidence of a backlash against
undocumented immigration by Hispanics
themselves. To the contrary, Hispanics
generally see undocumented immigrants as
a plus – both for the Hispanic community
itself and for the U.S. economy in
general. Here, too, there are
differences by nativity – with the
foreign born significantly more positive
than the native born in their views
about the effects of undocumented
immigration. But even the native born
are more positive than negative. And, as
they assess the impact of undocumented
immigrants on the economy, native-born
Hispanics are more inclined to see a
positive impact now (64%) than they were
five years ago, when just 54% said the
impact was positive.
