For the first time since 2005, a majority of Americans believe immigration levels should be decreased, according to a Gallup poll conducted in June.
The survey found 55 percent of respondents want reduced immigration, 25 percent want levels to remain the same and 16 percent want immigration to increase, the lowest level since 2009. That’s a sharp drop from a peak of 34 percent in May of 2020 and 33 percent in June of that same year, the only two months on record when more respondents wanted immigration levels increased than decreased.
The record low in the number of respondents who wanted a decrease in immigration was May of 2020, when only 28 percent of respondents said they wanted to reduce immigration.
Between 1993 and 1995, support for reduced immigration peaked with 65 percent of respondents supporting the idea.
Support for increased or decreased immigration over the past three decades tracks closely with the issue’s prominence in national politics.
The 65 percent peak of support for reduced immigration in the mid 1990s was a lead-up to the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA), to date the most significant — and most hawkish — immigration reform bill since 1986.
IIRAIRA was aggressively pushed by House Republicans under then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), making immigration a key issue ahead of the 1996 midterm elections.
Other peaks in support for reduced immigration track major political moments: In June of 2001, only 41 percent of respondents wanted reduced immigration; in October of that year, following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, that number jumped to 58 percent.
Support for decreased immigration decreased overall from that point until 2020, with peaks around major events like the beginning of the Obama presidency and the lead-up to Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration crackdown in 2010.
Support for increased immigration, conversely, barely registered from the 1960s until it began a slow and steady climb in the mid 1990s, peaking in the Trump administration.
Pro-immigration sentiment has steadily decreased during the Biden administration, as Republicans have successfully pushed border security and immigration to the center of national politics.
The ups and downs of immigration sentiment were roughly in line with total immigration levels since the 1990s until the big shift in perceptions over the past three and a half years.
The overall number of immigrants in the country and the number of immigrants as a percentage of the U.S. population have both grown consistently since 1970, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Until 2021, pro-immigration sentiment had consistently grown on average as the country’s immigrant population increased, while support for reduced immigration had followed a consistent downward trend.
—Updated at 12:17 p.m.
