June 2025 polling from Gallup revealed that Americans, whose concerns about immigration had been growing for the previous four years, have “grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today.” In fact, Gallup reported “a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.”The reality is that most Americans, even most conservatives who think it should be put on pause or reduced for a while, think immigration is a good thing.Yet the tanking numbers from 2021-24 demonstrate that this approval is a general one that can change very quickly depending on the circumstances. Immigration is good when it is legal immigration, it is not mass immigration, it is controlled, it doesn’t overwhelm American communities and infrastructure, and it doesn’t create massive changes in culture.
Becoming an American: How to fix the legal immigration systemWhatever American policy on immigration is in the future, it will only be seen as “good” if these conditions are met. When they are not, Americans will again think that immigration must be reduced or even ended.Liberals like to say that opposition to illegal immigration is simply a ploy to oppose all immigration. I don’t think this is true. Certainly, some people today do want to stop all immigration, illegal and legal, after the Biden years, but that group is small. Most of them want a “pause” rather than a full “stop” to our admission of immigrants. The sine qua non for any immigration policy must be that only those who are legally admitted ought to be allowed to stay.
