Surprising Consistency on a Path to Citizenship for Long-Term Immigrants

Of all the Trump administration’s changes in the last year, those around immigration and immigration enforcement are probably the most immediately felt. Stories about arrests and detentions are all over national and local news outlets around the country.

The 2025 American Communities Project survey suggests there may be concerns about how far those new immigration policies are going.

On the survey, 59% of respondents said, “Immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally, but have been working community members for at least ten years, should be given a pathway to legal status.” In a country that feels deeply divided, that number is surprisingly high. And the response may fly in the face of the administration’s efforts to remove 1 million undocumented immigrants a year during Trump’s presidency.

The Migration Policy Institute estimates that there are 13.7 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, and 9.2 million of them have been here for 10 years or more. The Kino Border Initiative, a group established by six Catholic organizations, surveyed 278 deportees from May to June and found that 44% had lived in the United States for at least a decade.

Beyond that high 59% approval for a pathway to citizenship, however, was the surprising consistency of views across the ACP types.

Uncommon Agreement

The community types that define the ACP are a complicated mix of populations, economies, and lifestyles, but there was broad and deep agreement on the pathway-to-citizenship question. In all 15 community types, the percent who agreed that longtime residents should have a pathway to citizenship outperformed the number who disagreed by at least 18 percentage points.

(The Aging Farmlands and Native American Lands were not included on this question due to cost and time constraints.)

To be clear, there are still some sizable differences in that chart. Close to 70% in the Hispanic Centers, LDS Enclaves, and Big Cities said they agree with the statement. At the same time, only 49% in the Evangelical Hubs and Working Class Country counties said they agree. Still, the data show strong pluralities agreeing with a statement on one of the nation’s most divisive issues.

The nation’s partisan divide seems much less pronounced on this aspect as well. The statement drew large majority support in some of the communities that went heavily for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race — the Exurbs, Military Posts, and Rural Middle America. (Hispanic Centers and LDS Enclaves also voted for Trump.)

Different Environments

To be clear, immigration looks very different in the 15 American Community Project types. In some of them, 20% or more of the residents are foreign-born. In others, that figure sits at 3% or less.

The ACP often tries to understand different views at the community level by understanding their different “lived experiences” — what people see and feel in their daily lives. And there are signs that lived experiences are making a difference in the path-to-citizenship data.

The community types with the highest percentages of foreign-born people are also among the types that are the biggest supporters of a pathway. Look at the numbers for the Big Cities, Hispanic Centers, and Urban Suburbs. All have foreign-born populations that top 19%, and all have 60% or more residents saying they support a pathway to citizenship.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story here.

Hispanic Centers have the highest percentage supporting a pathway to citizenship (68%), and that may not be a surprise. But that 68% is tied with the LDS Enclaves, where only 8% of the population is foreign-born.

Meanwhile, College Towns and Exurbs look similar in their foreign-born populations (7.4% and 8.6% respectively), but there is a bigger gap on the question of a pathway to citizenship. In College Towns, 65% support a pathway to citizenship. In Exurbs, 57% do.

There are some reasons for all those data points. LDS Enclaves, for instance, have long been supportive of Hispanics who become LDS adherents. There are Mormon churches where Spanish is the primary language. And generally speaking, College Towns lean left politically and the views of immigrants are often shaped by foreign students who are very much a part of the university community.

Beyond Community Differences

If there is a broad takeaway from these data, it may be how people feel differently about immigrants who have been contributing members of local communities over time, regardless of how common or uncommon foreign-born residents are in those communities.

Much of the dialogue about immigrants focuses on how those incoming groups are different from the places they go — how they mean change and how change can be scary to any community. But these data suggest that attitude doesn’t apply to long-term immigrant residents, even in places that strongly supported President Trump in 2024.

If the administration continues to cast a wide net for undocumented immigrants, including immigrants who have been here for a long time, it may find public support for its immigration policies, which is already low, declining further.