Americans’ Double Vision on Immigration: Through Local and National Lenses

As the American Communities Project has explored divisions in the nation these last few years, immigration has stood out as an especially complex issue. People see it differently depending upon whether it is framed as local issue or a national one.

As a local issue, immigration is just one of many problems their communities face, and it ranks below several other concerns. But as a national issue, immigration is a serious threat to the nation that needs to be addressed. Furthermore, survey data show that people in every community type see the issue as a much bigger problem for the nation than they do for their communities.

Some of that dissonance seems to be about the difference between firsthand and secondhand experience with the issue. And this week’s unrest in Los Angeles offers another example of why immigration is so divisive and intractable on the American political scene.

National v. Local Feelings

The 2024 ACP survey on American fragmentation asked respondents about a series of issues, more than 20, everything from unemployment to abortion to taxes — and, of course, immigration. The survey then asked people to pick the three that were the most important “in their community” and “in the country as a whole.”

In 2024, the top five community issues led with inflation, as might be expected, which was far and away the biggest concern, followed by taxes, homelessness, healthcare, and then immigration at only 17%.

But when respondents were asked about the biggest national issues, the list changed dramatically.

Inflation was still the No. 1 issue, again, as expected, but the number of voters citing it fell slightly. Immigration placed second among all respondents, at 31% — 14 percentage points higher than the number citing it as a local issue.

That’s a noteworthy finding. It suggests that immigration is not (or was not) a pressing issue on the ground where people live. In their lived experience, it didn’t rate as a big concern. But when the question moved to a national context, immigration was seen as a much bigger problem — and that was true in every community type.

Among the Community Types

The data show big increases in people saying immigration is a top concern “in the nation as a whole” in every type, double-digit jumps in all of them except the Hispanic Centers, where a larger share of the population (28%) said immigration was a top concern locally. (We only included 13 of the 15 types on this survey question due to time constraints.)

But three types stood out for showing the biggest jump for immigration as a top national concern: Graying America, Middle Suburbs, and Rural Middle America. They all saw increases of 20 percentage points or more, and they are similar in three important ways.

First, none are very racially or ethnically diverse. Second, they all voted for Donald Trump by double-digits in 2024. And third, they do not tend to have large foreign-born populations. In fact, the “foreign-born” figure for all those community types is 7% or less. The national average is 14%.

Those data suggest that immigration is not an issue with big everyday impacts on the ground in those places — or, at least, that the people who live in those places are not likely to run into immigrants too often in their daily lives.

So, what’s shaping the attitudes on immigration as a national issue in those communities — and really in all the types? It seems likely that news coverage and social media posts are drivers.

Inflation, crime, healthcare, and the general economy are issues most of us relate to directly through markers including grocery receipts, local police reports, the cost of doctor visits, and bank account statements.

Secondhand Knowledge

But most of us do not have firsthand knowledge of the situation at the border (something Ray Suarez wrote about for this site recently), nor have we seen a migrant “caravan” with our own two eyes. And, of course, most of us are U.S. citizens. In the ACP survey last year, only 38% of Americans said they had a close friend or relative who was an immigrant from another country. In some community types, the figure was much lower.

Our views on immigration are much more likely to be shaped by news reports and social media posts. Adding to the challenge, our research has shown people are becoming less likely to seek out news. They believe important news “finds them” and don’t generally spend a lot of time trying to suss out what’s accurate in the news they receive.

Those attitudes are all part of the larger story this week concerning the immigration protests in Los Angeles.

There’s no doubt that some of the protests have turned ugly and violent — and they are not over yet. But how widespread are they? And what is the real extent of the damage? Some media accounts suggest that while the images were intense, the areas affected were fairly small. Meanwhile, President Trump has called in the Marines to protect the city.

How one views the protests and immigration as a national issue is likely to be closely tied to what accounts and stories one reads, sees, and hears in the media. Most people don’t have a lot of in-person inputs on immigration in their daily lives. That leaves a lot of room for different understandings of what is an intensely divisive issue.