(Un)Welcome Guests: Examining the Economic Determinants of Immigration Policy Preferences in the United States

54 pagesGiven the recent ascent of immigration issues to the forefront of American political discourse, this investigation attempts to identify the economic factors that determine whether an individual will favor more liberal or conservative immigration policies in the United States. This investigation follows the lead of previous literature in this area by employing a series of probit models in order to evaluate how varying economic and social indicators affect the probability that an individual will favor more liberal or conservative immigration policies. However, unlike previous works in this body of literature, this paper explores a pooled cross-section data set that spans over twenty years of survey respondents. This more expansive data set allows for the exploration of shifts in American attitudes over time, an area which has previously been underexplored. Ultimately, this investigation demonstrates that in addition to key social factors, such as age, race, and education, time is also a key determinant of immigration policy attitudes, with more recent respondents demonstrating far more liberal attitudes towards immigration policies than respondents from older survey years