Immigration Attitudes: Using Labor Market Competition to Predict Preferences for Immigration Restrictions.

It is argued that immigration attitudes are driven both by individual circumstances as well as geographic conditions. Because recent immigrants to the United States have fewer skills they should not be seen as universally threatening. Instead, certain populations should be more threatened than others. The population standing to lose the most from low skill immigrants should be the working class. Consequently this group should be the most vociferous in their support for immigration restrictions. Therefore the primary driving force behind immigration attitudes is argued to stem from labor-market competition. .x000d.Furthermore, it makes little sense to say that all working class individuals bear the same burden. A working class individual in a small town in Iowa is unlikely to experience the same threat from immigrants as an individual in Queens NY. Not living in close proximity to immigrants makes it difficult to argue they threaten an individual’s job prospects. Consequently, contextual geographic information should play a significant role in illuminating this competition. Using NES data this paper will investigate both the role of labor market competition as well as immigrant proximity in the determination of these relevant attitudes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]