Poll: Immigrants meet increasing acceptance

updated 8:36 a.m. ET June 6, 2006

WASHINGTON - Public acceptance of immigrants has grown in the U.S. and several European countries over the last few years at a time of immigrant riots, humanitarian crises and heated debates aimed at limiting migration.

AP-Ipsos polling found more tolerance for immigrants now than two years ago in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

In the U.S. and Australia, just over half said immigrants are good for their country. In Canada — where immigrants are actively recruited — three-fourths said immigrants are a good influence.

“The population of immigrants is increasing dramatically,” said Fred Bemak, a George Mason University professor who studies the impact of immigration. “When it’s the person next door, it changes the tone.”

In fact, the changes in public sentiment over the last two years came in a shift from a number of people who didn’t know how they felt in 2004 to more people feeling immigrants are a good influence. The separate polls of about 1,000 adults in each of the eight countries were conducted between May 1-22 and have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

‘Decent people overall’
“I consider them hardworking, honest, decent people overall,” said Richard Paramoure, a semiretired resident of Taunton, Mass. “They definitely work harder, because their lives are a struggle. There are very few rich immigrants. They’ve got to establish themselves. They want what they see around them.”

The polling also found:

• Fears about immigrants being involved in crime are higher in the European countries than in the United States.
• Many of those polled in all eight countries said immigrants work as hard or harder than people born in those countries.
• In most of the countries, people who made higher incomes and had more education were more likely to say immigrants are a good influence.

More than half the people in the United States — 52 percent — said immigrants are having a good influence in their newly adopted country, up 10 percentage points from May 2004. Among Britons surveyed, 43 percent viewed immigrants in a positive light — up 11 points from two years ago. Almost half of Spaniards had an upbeat view of the newcomers’ influence — up 9 points from 2004. The French, Germans and Italians also have grown more likely to view immigrants favorably.

In the European countries polled — Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain — the public is about evenly divided on the influence of immigrants on their country.

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