Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton takes part in a roundtable of young Nevadans discussing immigration as she campaigns for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination on May 5 at Rancho High School in Las Vegas. (Mike Blake/Reuters)
Hillary Rodham Clinton took a stand on immigration policy when she sat down with a group of students in Las Vegas on Tuesday. She aligned herself with President Obama’s controversial executive actions on immigration. She signaled that she would go beyond to “fight for comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship.” She suggested that Republican candidates who are proposing anything short of a “full and equal” path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants are talking about “second-class status.”
Here is how media headlines characterized Clinton’s statements. Vox led with “Hillary just took a stunningly aggressive stance on immigration reform.” The National Journal’s headline stated that “Hillary Clinton Just told immigration Activists What they Want to Hear.” And Politico characterized her speech as a “pivot to the left.”
The reality is much different. Far from being aggressive, liberal and aligned with immigration activists, Clinton’s views are fairly mainstream. Dramatic shifts in public opinion over the past two decades suggest a real readiness for immigration reform.
Public anxiety over both legal and undocumented immigration has dropped remarkably in recent years according to polling data from The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. While 7 in 10 Americans sensed a “critical threat” by large numbers of immigrants and refugees coming to the United States in 1994, that number had plunged 33 percentage points to a historic low of 39 percent by 2014. Similarly, 7 in 10 Americans in 1994 thought that controlling and reducing immigration was a very important policy goal for the United States, fewer than half — 47 percent — now think this is a very important priority.
The American public also backs Clinton’s call for a pathway to citizenship. A variety of polls have found that majorities of Americans support President Obama’s executive action, favor a way for immigrants to become American citizens, and agree that immigrants strengthen the United States. And 7 in 10 Americans believe that Republicans in Congress should focus on “passing a bill that makes comprehensive reforms to US immigration policy” rather than “focusing on overturning president Obama’s immigration policies.”
Behind the shift in public opinion are economic and demographic realities. Immigration from Mexico is at a net zero. Apprehensions along the Southwest border at their lowest levels since the 1970s, despite last summer’s uptick of child migrants fleeing escalating violence in Central America.
Just as the number of border crossings is slowing, Americans are becoming increasingly aware of the demographic lifeline that immigrants provide to stagnating local economies — particularly in rust belt cities like Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland, where the native-born population is aging out of the workforce — and the urgency of an updated system that allows immigrants to fully contribute to their communities. And economists have taken notice of the projected benefit — a $1.4 billion boost to our gross domestic product over 10 years — of a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented.
Most damning to the notion that Clinton’s stance on immigration has gone far left is the bipartisan backing revealed by the 2014 Chicago Council polling of policy “elites,” which include nearly 700 individuals working in Congress, the executive branch, think tanks and universities, along with journalists, business leaders and internationally focused interest groups and non-governmental organizations.
Among these opinion leaders, very few expressed concern around immigration — regardless of political affiliation. Just 4 percent of Democrats, 16 percent of Republicans and 9 percent of independents view large numbers of immigrants and refugees coming to the United States as a “critical threat.”
Similarly low numbers consider controlling and reducing illegal immigration to be a very important goal: 4 percent of Democrats, 20 percent of Republicans and 9 percent of independents. In fact, among Democratic and independent opinion leaders, controlling and reducing illegal immigration was the lowest priority of the list of 18 issues presented on the survey — and near the lowest for Republicans, just above limiting global warming and strengthening the United Nations.
To be fair, surveys have shown that among average Americans, Republicans are more resistant than Democrats to the idea of immigration reform. But the notion that Hillary’s stance on immigration represents a pivot to the left is hyperbole. Her proposals include many of the same elements found in S.744, the bipartisan reform bill that cleared the Senate in the summer of 2013.
While many believe that Clinton has thrown down the gauntlet for upcoming immigration debates, survey research suggests that her position is simply in line with the preferences of the majority of the American public and influential opinion leaders.
Dina Smeltz (@roguepollster) is a senior fellow on public opinion and foreign policy at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and Sara McElmurry (@s_mcelmurry) is the council’s assistant director for immigration. These views are their own.
