More than four-in-nine blue collar and working class Americans competing in the lowest end of the labor market want less immigration to the United States, the latest Gallup survey finds.
The latest Gallup polling finds that about 45 percent of working class Americans — those with a high school diploma or less — want less foreign competition in the U.S. labor market and thus support reducing legal immigration levels, at which currently about 1.2 million mostly low-skilled immigrants are added to the country’s population every year.
Overall, more than one-in-three Americans, or 35 percent, said they want less immigration — an increase of six percentage points from the same time last year. Today, about the same number of Americans who support current legal immigration levels also support a decrease in legal immigration.
Of all three educational demographic groups surveyed, those with a college degree, those who took some college courses, and those with a high school diploma or less, the poll revealed that the lower an American is in the labor market, the more likely they are to want legal immigration controlled.
Nearly four-in-ten Americans who have taken some college courses said they want less immigration as well, with a plurality of college graduates, 44 percent, being the only educational demographic saying they want legal immigration levels to remain the same.
Like blue collar Americans, Republican and conservative voters by majorities want less immigration to the country. For example, about 54 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of conservatives said they want to see legal immigration to the U.S. cut down.
Swing voters are largely split on the level of immigration they prefer. About 37 percent said they support current legal immigration levels but another 36 percent said they want immigration reduced. Only 1-in-4 swing voters said they want to see more immigration to the country.
White Americans are more likely to support less immigration than those supporting more immigration by about a 13-point margin. Non-white Americans are split across supporting current immigration levels, increasing immigration, and decreasing immigration.
The survey tracks the growing divide between America’s working and middle class — demanding less immigration and less foreign competition — and the country’s ruling class of economic and political elites — who have demanded more immigration to keep wages low.
Research by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has discovered that current legal immigration levels shift about $500 billion in wages away from working and middle-class Americans toward new arrivals and economic elites.
Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, has found that every one-percent increase in the immigrant composition of American workers’ occupations reduces their weekly wages by about 0.5 percent. This means the average native-born American worker today has his weekly wages reduced by perhaps 8.5 percent because of current legal immigration levels.
In the last decade alone, the U.S. admitted ten million legal immigrants, forcing American workers to compete against a growing population of low-wage foreign workers. Meanwhile, if legal immigration continues, there will be 69 million foreign-born residents living in the U.S. by 2060.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.