Under Trump, immigrants are more fearful but determined to stay, poll finds

WASHINGTON - As the Trump administration seeks to remake the immigration system and deports tens of thousands of people, many immigrants are more scared about living in the United States, and yet their resolve to remain is largely unchanged.

A new national survey of immigrants in the country – both documented and in the country illegally, and varying widely in how and when they arrived – found that about half of all immigrants say they feel less safe since President Donald Trump took office.

The survey was done by The New York Times and KFF, a non-profit that conducts polling and research about health policy.

Among the immigrants surveyed – whether they are in the US legally or not, or have been naturalised as citizens – concern that they or a family member could be detained or deported has risen significantly since before Mr Trump’s return to power.

Still, large majorities also say their own future, and that of their children, remains bright, with the concept of the American dream retaining its powerful appeal. About 70 per cent said that if they could go back in time, they would still make the choice to migrate to the United States.

The survey captured a snapshot of immigrant life against a backdrop of enormous change in the United States, with many people standing by their choice to come – sometimes illegally – even as their image of the country as a welcoming place has been shaken.

Immigrants feel that, across every measure, they are better off in the United States compared with the living conditions that propelled them to leave their homelands.

The survey, of 1,805 immigrants across the country, is a broad look at a group for which there is often very little data to understand their views and experiences, given that the US Census Bureau does not ask specifics about immigration status.

The group is also a small share of the population, and too difficult to reach to be measured with accuracy by most surveys.

The poll reflected the breadth of immigrants in the United States, including a significant share who find Mr Trump’s immigration policies “necessary” and some who are “proud” of increased enforcement.

For many Americans, the archetype of an immigrant may be someone who has recently arrived in the country.

But a vast majority of immigrants living in the United States – more than 70 per cent – have been in the country for 10 or more years, according to the available data from the Census Bureau.

A little more than half are US citizens, and 53 per cent say they speak English exclusively or at least very well.

Even as the United States has historically been seen as a melting pot, immigrants themselves believe that label may no longer apply.

The survey found that 60 per cent of immigrants, including a majority of those with legal status, say the United States used to be a “great place” for immigrants but no longer is – a view that is especially common among those from Latin America and Asia.

European immigrants were likelier to say that the United States was a great place for immigrants.

Mr Marcos Herrera, 42, moved to Florida from Chile in 2009 to join his Puerto Rican girlfriend. He hoped to continue his studies in mechanical engineering but could not afford to finish his degree and now works as a custodian at Walt Disney World.

Though he became a legal permanent resident and feels mostly safe, he said he has watched with terror and sadness as other Latinos in Florida have been picked up and deported after years of working hard in the country.

“In the past, there was no fear like there is now,” he said. “Families should not be separated.”

Even as the current view of the country has dimmed for many – amid raids, anti-immigrant rhetoric and masked agents that now permeate American life – their commitment to stay has not.

The share of immigrants, 70 per cent, who said that they would still make the choice to migrate to the United States is largely unchanged from two years ago, before Mr Trump’s push for mass deportations.

For most, especially those who escaped violence, poverty and repression, their view appears to be a matter of perspective.

Large majorities say that their financial situation is better in the United States than the country they left (70 per cent), their employment situation is better (65 per cent) and educational opportunities are better for themselves and their children (74 per cent).

Slightly fewer, though still about half, say their safety is better because they came to the United States.

Most immigrants expressed optimism about their future in the United States, regardless of Mr Trump’s approach to immigration enforcement.

Nearly 80 per cent, including a majority of those who are in the country illegally, said they were on their way to achieving the American dream or had achieved it already.

“People often compare their decision about moving, or not, compared to where they were,” said Amherst College professor Pawan H. Dhingra, who researches immigration and was not affiliated with the survey.

So it was not necessarily surprising, he said, that immigrants were both “feeling less safe and still feeling like the American dream is possible”.

The survey offers insight into the prevailing mood among immigrants – including citizens, legal permanent residents and immigrants in the country illegally, who were identified in the poll as not being citizens or having a valid visa – more than nine months into Mr Trump’s efforts to secure the border, carry out mass deportations and curb legal and illegal immigration.

Mr Trump has moved decisively – and divisively – to fulfill his campaign promise to impose a hard-line immigration agenda, after winning in 2024 with support from voters who shifted to the right amid scenes of disorder at the border and an influx of migrants in large cities.

The president has ended paths to asylum, deported people to countries where they are not from and deployed agents in a made-for-TV display of force.

The scope of the crackdown has already tested voters who support Mr Trump’s deportation goals but believe that his methods have been too aggressive.

The share of immigrants who worry that a family member could be detained or deported jumped significantly, to 41 per cent, up from 26 per cent two years ago, during more lenient Biden-era immigration policies.

Concern about deportation has grown since 2023 among citizens and non-citizens, among those in the US legally and those who are not.

Roughly half of immigrants – including 82 per cent of immigrants in the country illegally – said they were afraid about what was happening with immigration enforcement; a similar share said they felt angry.

“I feel we had the American dream, until everything in January started to fall apart,” said Ms Leticia Anaya, 60, a Mexican mother who became a US citizen in 2001 and lives in Aurora, Colorado.

Ms Anaya, whose father crossed the border in the 1970s and sponsored her for a green card in 1990, said her family had made a plan when they heard of US citizens being detained by federal agents.

They stored all their documents, including naturalisation papers, birth certificates and passports, in a “special box” tucked in a closet at home, she said.

“It’s not like I am very afraid, but it could happen,” said Ms Anaya, who said she lost her job with the US Department of Veterans Affairs because of Mr Trump’s mass layoffs. “I look Hispanic. I have an accent.”

Still, 40 per cent of immigrants say they feel Mr Trump’s enforcement tactics are necessary, and 15 per cent say that the tactics made them feel proud.

Roughly 30 per cent of immigrants in the country illegally say increased enforcement is necessary.

Those who say increased enforcement is needed are disproportionately US citizens, many of whom have been here for decades, the survey found.

“Trump is trying to make this country more valuable instead of bringing anybody that wants to come in and do whatever they want,” said Mr Gustavo Rojas, 42, a citizen who came to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 1990 and lives in Boston.

“I just think that Biden was slipping too much. Way too much.”

Mr Rojas, who is unemployed and identifies as a Republican, said he had struggled to start a career after high school and tried to join the Marines but was discharged because of a schizophrenia diagnosis.

He said he believed he was better off in the United States because of what he described as generous government assistance.

“I think the country’s going in the right direction,” Mr Rojas said of the immigration crackdown. “It’s not affecting me at all.”

Other surveys have shown that Americans have grown skeptical about the future of the American dream, with 53 per cent of respondents in a 2024 Pew Research Center survey saying that it is still possible.

The new survey found that most immigrants – regardless of their immigration status – feel that their children will have a better life.

A similar share expressed this in 2023, before Mr Trump took office.

Mr Sami Takieddine, 46, was born in Britain to parents who fled Lebanon’s civil war in the 1970s.

The family moved to the United States in 1980, when Mr Takieddine was an infant, and found a foothold in New Jersey and Georgia.

Over four decades, Mr Takieddine notched one milestone after another: He became a citizen, bought a home, sent his two teenage children to good schools and climbed the ranks to become a director at a technology company in Atlanta.

“I think that America stands for, ‘Do good things, be good at what you do, be good to other people and you can really succeed,’” Mr Takieddine said, adding that the American dream still exists.

“It just needs to be rejuvenated,” he said.

But he worries that, in the Trump era, Americans have stopped valuing the plight of immigrants fleeing war-torn countries or those who “for whatever reason, just want a better way of life in America”.

“I think that’s a travesty,” he said.

Worries are pervasive. Forty-three per cent of immigrants say they worry that they or a family member could have their legal status revoked. And the same share worry that they or a family member could be separated from children or other family members.

Those fears are most pronounced among immigrants in the country illegally, 70 per cent of whom are concerned about their legal status; one-third of US citizens and about half of permanent residents share these concerns.

And for many, financial concerns are also mounting. Nearly half of immigrants, including 62 per cent of those in the country illegally, say it has been harder for them to earn a living since January.

Mr Huayun Geng, 49, a software engineer living in Washington state, said that although he had found success in the United States, he worried about the future of his two children, ages 16 and eight.

Mr Geng, who emigrated from China in 2012 on an H-1B visa and became a legal permanent resident in 2020, said the country had been made politically unstable by the divide between Democrats and Republicans.

He also worried that the United States had isolated itself as its education system weakened, dulling the nation’s global competitive edge.

“I’m living a better life myself now in US over when I was in China, but I feel like it’s getting harder and harder for people who just came in to achieve the same kind of dreams as I did,” Mr Geng said. “Now, when I’m looking at my kids, I feel like it will be very hard for them.” NYTIMES