Migration and Human Rights (15): Growing Support for Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants

The graph below shows that a large majority of U.S. citizens, and an even larger majority of young citizens (73%) is now in favor of some kind of amnesty measure for illegal immigrants:

(source)

Even despite the recession, support has grown considerably (one would assume that a recession pushes down support, and even leads to xenophobia, see here).

Part of this is altruism, but voters have clearly come to understand the benefits of immigration. Many of course still believe in certain myths about migration:

• the myth of the ”criminal immigrant“
• the myth of overpopulation
• the myth of “importing poverty” (see also here)
• or myths about pandemics (see the excitement over Mexicans carrying swine flu into the U.S.)

and oppose immigration (legal or illegal) because of these myths. So it’s important to debunk them. For example, rather than importing poverty, immigration often means importing wealth. Take this graph for example:

(source)

Some data on illegal immigrants in the U.S. And here is a post explaining why migration is a human rights issue.