Media exposure and illegal immigration: Evidence on attitudes from the US

We use the CCES cross-sectional survey, which took place before the 2006 midterm elections, and analyse the link between attitudes on illegal immigration and media exposure in the US. We find evidence that media exposure significantly affects public opinion on illegal immigration. Controlling for ideology, income and education, individuals watching Fox News are 9 percentage points more likely to oppose the more lenient Senate plan on illegal migration, which allows for a path to citizenship. We find an effect of the same size and direction for CNN viewers. Compared to the other networks, individuals watching PBS are more likely to support the Senate plan. Finally, individuals living in states with a larger fraction of illegal immigrants over total population systematically tend to support the Senate plan. This latter result survives when we instrument the state-specific fraction of illegal immigrants with distance from Mexico and population size