Perceptions of Threat and Americans’ Attitudes toward Immigrants

• In Event: Attitudes Toward Social Groups

Abstract

In recent years scholars have considered the determinants and effects of Americans’ perceptions of immigration threat. In particular, scholars have explored how immigrant threat perceptions shape Americans attitudes toward immigrants and toward restrictive immigration policies. However, few studies have focused on the effects of different types of immigrant threat on how Americans think about documented and undocumented immigrants. Do perceptions of economic, cultural, security, and crime threat influence Americans’ views toward documented and undocumented immigrants? Are there differences in the effects of perceived immigrant threat for these two immigrant groups?

In this paper, we explore the effects of different types of immigrant threat perceptions on how American evaluate documented and undocumented immigrants. Using data from the 2016 and 2017 Voter Study Group surveys, we hypothesize that perceptions of different immigrant threats have an effect on evaluations of both documented and undocumented immigrants. We suggest further that perceptions of immigrant threat should have a stronger negative effect on evaluations of undocumented immigrants than on evaluations of documented immigrants. Our argument is that the careful vetting that documented immigrants experience reduces perceptions of threat that Americans have toward this group; on the other hand, the lack of vetting and fear of the unknown means that evaluations toward undocumented immigrants are much more likely to be linked to perceptions of economic, cultural, security, and crime threat. Uncertainty associated with undocumented immigration activates fear and perceptions of threat, which is reduced considerably for documented immigrants.

Finally, we explore the possibility that American nationalism moderates the relationship between perceptions of immigrant threat and evaluations of documented and undocumented immigrants. Americanism, we suggest, heightens individuals’ identification with the United States and renders them more sensitive to perceived threats. We speculate that this heightened sensitivity to perceived threat associated with American nationalism will be stronger for undocumented immigrants than documented immigrants.

Authors

• Dan Qi, Lamar University

• James C. Garand, Louisiana State University