Most Americans want to help Ukrainian refugees, but just one-in-three say they support permanent residency for more than 50,000 refugees, according to a new poll by Rasmussen Reports.

The two-sided poll spotlights how Americans struggle to try to balance their generous but conflicting desires to help foreign strangers while also preserving economic opportunities for their fellow Americans. That balance is made much more difficult by mass immigration, job outsourcing, and the pro-migration xenophilia of progressive, media, and business elites.

The March 13-14 survey of 1,000 likely voters reported that 45 percent of all voters “strongly support” President Joe Biden’s statement that the United States will welcome Ukrainian refugees “with open arms.”

The 45 percent “strongly support” bloc includes 66 percent of liberals, 55 percent of Democrats, 36 percent of Republicans, and 29 percent of conservatives.

Another 31 percent say they “somewhat support” the statement, while 19 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” oppose an “open arms” welcome.

But that welcome in principle for Ukrainian refugees loses much support when the Americans are asked if the refugees should be allowed to stay in the United States, presumably to compete for jobs, homes, university slots, and other resources.

Just 25 percent of the likely voters said more than 100,000 Ukrainians should be “be granted permanent residency in the United States.”

Only 11 percent said 50,000 to 100,000 should be allowed to stay.

Sixteen percent said that 10,000 to 50,000 should be allowed to stay, and 17 percent said less than 10,000 should be welcomed.

The most popular response was “Not sure,” which got 31 percent support.

Among liberals, just 33 percent favor an inflow of more than 100,000.

The poll does not quiz the respondents about why they favor or disfavor large-scale Ukrainian refugee arrivals. However, a survey posted in 2018 by Richard Hanania provides evidence that partisan priorities shape views towards Ukrainian migration:

Conservative opposition to refugee resettlement can be weakened if conservatives are given reasons to believe those refugees will support the Republican Party. At the same time, liberal support for refugees drops when they receive the same information.

Overall, the Rasmussen poll shows deep public opposition and ambivalence about any large-scale Ukrainian resettlement into the United States, where wages have remained flat for roughly 20 years amid the government-organized inflow of wage-cutting, rent-spiking economic migrants.

While just 25 percent support resettlement of 100,000 or more, 44 percent oppose that number.

In fact, a greater share oppose a settlement of more than 50,000 than support an inflow of 100,000.

The likely swing-voters in Rasmussen’s sample were similar to the national results — 25 percent for more than 100,000, 37 percent for less than 50,000, and 25 percent “Not Sure.”

The survey shows an unusually large sex gap. For example, 31 percent of men — but only 20 percent of women — support a settlement of more than 100,000. Similarly, 22 percent of men declare “Not sure,” while 40 percent of women pick “Not Sure.”

Since at least 1990, the D.C. establishment has used a wide variety of excuses and explanations to justify its policy of extracting tens of millions of migrants and visa workers from poor countries to serve as workers, consumers, and renters for various U.S. investors and CEOs.

In 2021, for example, President Joe Biden’s deputies admitted roughly 1.5 million legal, illegal, or quasi-legal migrants. That inflow adds up to almost one migrant for every two young Americans who begin working.

The establishment’s self-serving economic strategy of extraction migration has no stopping point, and it is harmful to ordinary Americans because it cuts their career opportunities and their wages while also raising their housing costs.

Extraction migration also curbs Americans’ productivity, shrinks their political clout, and widens the regional wealth gaps between the Democrats’ coastal states and the Republicans’ Heartland states. The economic strategy also kills many migrants, violates workplace standards, separates families, and extracts wealth from the home countries.

An economy built on extraction migration also radicalizes Americans’ democratic, compromise-promoting civic culture and allows wealthy elites to ignore despairing Americans at the bottom of society. Migration is also backed by university progressives who desire to manage the chaos of a diverse society rather than be sidelined forever by cooperating citizens in a stable republic.

Not surprisingly, the wealth-shifting extraction migration policy is very unpopular, according to a wide variety of polls.

The polls show deep and broad public opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

The opposition is growing, anti-establishment, multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, bipartisan, rational, persistent, and recognizes the solidarity that Americans owe to one another.