Rasmussen: Liberals Favor Migration over Environmental Protection

3175243 08/22/2017 US dollar notes and an American visa. From August 23, the United States
Sergey Mamontov/Sputnik/AFP
Neil Munro

Just one-third of Americans favor continued immigration-driven population growth — but 55 percent of liberals favor the extra migration that drives up housing prices, worsens suburban congestion, and expands carbon emissions, according to the results of an October survey by Rasmussen Reports.

In contrast, 57 percent of non-Democrats favor policies that stop or reverse immigration-driven population increases. The slowdown options are favored by just 40 percent of Democrats and 35 percent of liberals, said the October 4-8 poll of 1,250 likely voters.

Forty-nine percent of Democrats and 55 percent of liberals prefer to “continue immigration driven population growth at the current levels.”

The only other demographic groups to show notable support for the migration-driven population increases were the respondents who earn more than $100,000 per year (43 percent) or who live in major cities (44 percent), says the survey.

In contrast, every other group favored immigration slowdowns when they were asked:

The Census Bureau projects that current immigration policies are responsible for most U.S. population growth and will add 75 million people over the next 40 years. In terms of the effect on the overall quality of life in the United States, do you favor continuing this level of immigration-driven population growth, slowing down immigration-driven population growth or having no immigration-driven population growth at all?

The poll showed clear majorities favored one of the two slowdown options: “Slow down immigration driven population growth … [or]  Have no immigration driven population growth at all.”

Fifty-seven percent of likely voters preferred one of the two slowdown options, along with 52 percent of voters younger than 40, 61 percent of voters aged from 40 to 64, plus 59 percent of whites, 56 percent of blacks, 56 percent of Hispanics, 73 percent of Republicans, 54 percent of “moderates,” 65 percent of non-college voters, 53 percent college votes, 56 percent of suburbanites, 64 percent of “small city/town/rural” voters, and 61 percent of people who earn less than $100,000.

The opposition towards migration makes sense for people who want to buy better homes.

That reality is echoed by investor groups who are urging more immigration to spike real estate values. For example, the Economic Innovation Group says, “The relationship between population growth and housing demand is clear. More people means more demand for housing, and fewer people means less demand.” Mike Bloomberg’s pro-migration advocacy group, New American Economy, pushes the same argument:

The research shows that an increase in the absolute number of immigrants in a particular county from 2000–2010 results in corresponding economic gains—increased demand for locally produced goods and services, a corresponding inflow of U.S.-born individuals—that are reflected in the housing market.

But just 40 percent of Democrats and 35 percent of liberals picked either of the two slowdown options that would slow housing prices. Roughly 10 percent of respondents said, “not sure.”

Kevin Lynn, the founder of U.S. Tech Workers, told Breitbart News October 16:

Eighty-eight percent of our population growth is directly attributable to immigrants and the children of immigrants. As we increase population, we increase the demand for things like housing and infrastructure, and we increase individual carbon footprints. We’re injecting [immigrant] people into a middle-class lifestyle in which just about everything is centered around the automobile. We have in America the second greatest individual carbon footprint of any country — short of the United Arab Emirates — so when you increase the population, you’re increasing our carbon footprint.

The same Rasmussen survey showed one-in-four Democrats and liberals say it is “better for the government to bring in new foreign workers to help keep business costs and prices down” rather than require CEOs to hire Americans in their national labor market. In contrast, half as many Republicans — 14 percent vs. the Democrats’ 27 percent — want the government to deliver foreign workers to employers, says the October 4-8 poll of 1,250 likely voters.

Joe Biden’s 2020 plan promises to let companies import more visa workers, to let mayors import temporary workers, to accelerate the inflow of chain-migration migrants, to end migration enforcement against illegal aliens unless they commit a felony, and to dramatically accelerate the inflow of poor refugees to at least 125,000 per year.

Democrats’ support for a cheap-labor economy is funded by investors and donors but is wrapped in a “diversity” ideology that insists Americans should not ask their government to favor them over other peoples. For example, Biden told an ABC town hall meeting on October 16:

We are a country that is a country of slaves who came here 400 years ago, indigenous people, and everyone else is an immigrant. And we’re a diverse country. Unless we are able to treat people equally, we’re — we’re just never going to meet our potential.

Business groups promote their agenda by funding polls that push people to agree with the Cold War claim that the United States is a “Nation of Immigrants” instead of a nation of Americans.

In contrast, Trump’s 2020 plan offers broadly popular — but quite limited — pro-American restrictions on migration and visa workers.

Open-ended legal migration is praised by business and progressives partly because migrants usually flood the labor market and help to transfer wealth from wage-earners to stockholders.

Migration moves money from employees to employers, from families to investors, from young to old, from homebuyers to real estate investors, and from the central states to the coastal states.

Migration allows investors and CEOs to skimp on labor-saving technology, sideline U.S. minorities, disregard workplace discrimination rules, ignore disabled people, exploit stoop labor in the fields, short-change labor in the cities, impose tight control on American professionals, centralize technological innovation, and undermine many types of labor rights.

 

 

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