So much for mass deportation and building walls. Last week, Donald Trump introduced a potentially dramatic shift in the immigration debate by introducing a frame that has rarely been discussed in the news: Illegal or undocumented immigrants who have been here a long time should get special consideration and be allowed to stay in the United States.
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During a town-hall forum on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, Trump asked the audience what they thought of this idea. He explained that, on the campaign trail, many supporters have asked him to reconsider his commitment to deporting all undocumented immigrants. He asked the audience whether they would “throw out” immigrants who have been in the United States for 20 years, or “work with them” to help them stay without a guarantee of citizenship.
Many Democrats strongly rebuked Trump’s town-hall tactics, likening it to mob rule. What these critics seem to miss, however, is that Trump introduced an important new dimension to the immigration debate — time spent in the United States — that has the potential to significantly shift public opinion in a more progressive direction.
Here’s how Americans view long-term but undocumented residents
Trump threw out the number 20 when asking people about what they would do, a seemingly arbitrary number. That’s not random. In fact, our research suggests that 20 years has special resonance among American voters. If someone’s been here that long, even if they arrived illegally, most Americans oppose deportation and favor legalization.
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In our forthcoming book, Framing Immigrants, we analyze news coverage and original survey research on immigration policy between 2008 and 2014. In five different surveys, we examined whether particular ideas or concepts can shift American public opinion on immigration policy. In those surveys, we found that years spent in the United States can powerfully influence American attitudes toward deportation or legalization.
For example, in a study fielded on Mechanical Turk in 2013, we asked respondents the following question, varying how long an immigrant had lived in the United States:
Some say the U.S. government should give special consideration to undocumented immigrants who have spent more than [two years/ five years/ten years/twenty years] in the United States and have no criminal record. They say that such people should be allowed the opportunity to stay in this country and eventually become U.S. citizens.
In the figure below, we show that the percentage of individuals who support legalization in each scenario. As you can see, support is much higher for legalizing long-term residents – those who’ve lived in the United States for 10 or 20 years.
Support for Legalization by Years in the U.S., Mechanical Turk 2013
That’s true not just for legalization but also for deportation, albeit in reverse. In surveys with representative samples from 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2014, we asked similarly varied questions about deportation rather than legalization. As you’d expect, the longer an undocumented immigrant has been in the United States, the less likely Americans are to support deportation.
Those results hold regardless of when we asked the question.
And yet news stories rarely focus on how long an immigrant has been here
Despite how appealing Americans find the idea that the United States should not deport long-term immigrants, we found that news stories in the past decade rarely covered this angle. The dearth of news coverage on long-term immigrants was apparent not only in conservative outlets such as Fox News and the Washington Times, but also in mainstream outlets such as the New York Times and The Washington Post as well as more liberal outlets such as MSNBC.
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When we finished writing the book a few months ago, we speculated that pro-immigrant activists could seize on this novel frame to help sway public opinion. Donald Trump seems to have provided the kind of rhetorical opening on immigration that progressives have so far failed to create. When the candidate asked the raucous crowd who would support deporting people who have lived in the United States for 20 years, only a few people stood up. A much larger crowd stood to support allowing long-term residents to stay.
Trump may have inadvertently changed the immigration debate
It’s unlikely that Trump was trying to sway public opinion on immigration when he polled the Hannity audience. Rather, he was probably trying to appeal to moderates and independents who see mass deportations as too harsh. So far, there’s no sign that he has won new supporters. His new immigration strategy might backfire, dissuading conservatives in key swing states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania from bothering to vote.
But if the town hall reaction is any guide, Trump’s recent comments may have a bigger effect on the immigration debate than on the presidential election.
Karthick Ramakrishnan and Jennifer Merolla are professors of political science at the University of California at Riverside. Chris Haynes is assistant professor of political science at University of New Haven. Together they are authors of Framing Immigrants, a forthcoming book from Russell Sage Foundation.