When Gaps Become Huuuuge: Donald Trump and Beliefs About Immigration

Abstract

Immigration became a hot issue during the 2016 presidential election, in part due to Donald Trump’s offensive campaign against immigrants and minorities in general. Drawing upon the belief gap hypothesis, we tested if support for Donald Trump increased false beliefs about immigrants. The belief gap hypothesis explains differences in beliefs about empirically verifiable and politically contested issues, relying on ideology and partisanship—instead of education— to predict people’s beliefs. By using nationally representative panel data, this study explored how political ideology and education work together to predict belief gaps about immigrants. Findings suggest that conservative ideology and education interact to predict attitudes, showing that highly educated conservatives hold more negative beliefs about immigrants as compared to highly educated liberals or less educated conservatives. We also found that Trump’s supporters exhibit negative attitudes and beliefs about immigration—yet results indicate that Donald Trump is not the cause of such attitudes but the catalyst that reveals them. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.

Notes

¹ The population of undocumented immigrants has remained essentially stable for 5 years (Pew Research Center, 2016).

² In all racial categories, immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than their U.S.-born counterparts (Pew Research Center, 2013).

³ Immigrants’ occupational distribution shows a high concentration in jobs that require few skills (e.g., building clearing and maintenance, 34%; construction labors, 26%). Given the restrictions to access middle and high job positions, studies show that immigration—especially undocumented immigration—does not affect employment or salaries (Camarota, 2006).

⁴ Asian immigrants are the largest group of recent immigrant arrivals. Immigration from Latin America, especially from Mexico, has slowed in recent years (Pew Research Center, 2015b).

⁵ Citizen children cannot sponsor their parents for citizenship until they turn 21. Having a baby to secure citizenship is an extremely long-term, uncertain process (Politifact, 2010).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Magdalena Saldaña

Magdalena Saldaña (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 2017) is an assistant professor in the School of Communications at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Her research interests include political communication, public opinion, digital and social media, and Latin American studies.

Lourdes M. Cueva Chacón

Lourdes M. Cueva Chacón (M.A., University of Texas at El Paso, 2010) is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include the intersection of media sociology and minority populations, immigration, and Latin American studies.

Víctor García-Perdomo

Víctor García-Perdomo (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin, 2017) is an associate professor in the School of Communication at Universidad de La Sabana. His research interests include the impact of digital technology on media and journalism, the use of social media as platforms for political expression, and Latin American studies.