One of the defining lessons of the 2024 election polls was the danger of relying too much on single surveys, especially when specific results (Harris leading in Iowa) deviate from generally accepted reality . On sensitive topics, it has become all too tempting for experts to seize on an aberrant result as proof of something definitive, while leaving aside other details or other data.

This also happens with religious journalism. For example, in a survey recently taken up by the media, it was reported that “nearly a third of Latter-day Saints in the United States agree that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the nation. » But that’s not what the investigation asked. Respondents were asked if they supported the following: “Immigrants enter the country illegally today poison the blood of our country” (emphasis added).

The idea that the blood of a country is “poisoned” by a particular group undoubtedly has a dark history. The final paragraphs of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf warn of a “the age of racial poisoning» – earlier speaking out against “any mixture of Aryan blood with that of inferior peoples” (including any Jew who, according to him, “poisons the blood of others”). It was this so-called “blood poisoning” that Hitler believed was responsible for “the disappearance of all the great cultures of the past.”

A broader context of darkening American attitudes toward immigrants

Observers are therefore not wrong to worry that the Americans are adopting equally hostile attitudes. Even though the Americans have generally held positive attitudes towards immigration in recent decades, offbeat in recent years, with repeated surveys showing “most Americans unhappy with border crisis and surge in immigration at top Gallup rankings”most important problem» list among the Americans surveyed. This is particularly true for conservatives and people of faithwith Republican concerns about immigration at a “record level”, according to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

But to determine the path forward as a country, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of the available data. And as interviewers know well, the exact way a question is phrased can dramatically change the answers received. In this case, the PRRI organization framed his question in terms of illegal immigration, clearly prompting respondents to make remarks about immigrants who are, by definition, people committing illegal acts.

The survey question was, knowingly or unknowingly, phrased in a way that likely evoked images of smugglers, sex traffickers, etc., to influence people to give an anti-immigrant response. Given the way the question is asked, we are not surprised that it has elicited responses that give the impression that a substantial minority of Americans are xenophobic.

This includes 19 percent of black Protestants, 23 percent of Jews, and 27 to 30 percent of Hispanic Catholics and Protestants, showing that a surprisingly large number of these ethnic minorities also answered affirmatively to the same question.

Since most still believe that immigration should be done legally, it is perhaps understandable that a significant subset would approve of a survey question expressing premonitions about the impact of illegal entry. But it’s also important to note that the best data points to excessive criminality among those entering the country illegally. A analysis Texas arrest records found that undocumented immigrants were arrested at a rate less than half the arrest rate of native-born U.S. citizens. And research conducted at Stanford dating back to the 1960s find immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than those born in the United States

More than that, Walker Wright summary earlier this year, how the U.S. economy benefits from the millions of immigrants who legally enter the United States each year, with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints discouraging its own members over the years to immigrate from one country to another without proper documentation.

Latter-day Saints’ relative positivity toward immigration

Historically, Latter-day Saints have been an exception in their more positive view of immigration. In a report published in 2015, David E. Campbell, Christopher F. Karpowitz and J. Quin Monson common sociological data on Latter-day Saints in American politics that reveals that Church members are “more accepting of immigrants than most other Americans, particularly unlike evangelicals.”

This broad survey also found that 26% of Latter-day Saints favor more immigration (twice as many as evangelicals), making them more pro-immigration than any other religious group except Jews ( 29%).

The authors hypothesized that the high percentage of Latter-day Saints serving missions in other countries “fosters an empathetic perspective toward illegal immigrants” since most members have “personally witnessed abject poverty that forces migrants to enter the United States illegally.”

They added that church leaders have “always been a voice of compassion on immigration,” noting their vocal support in previous years for immigration reforms that “balance a mentality of public order with compassion for immigrants and a strong desire for policies.” that keep families together.

“To be interpreted with caution”

The most glaring problem in interpreting the survey is the small sample size. Only 97 Latter-day Saints, out of a U.S. population of nearly 7 million members (17 million worldwide), responded to the survey.

At the very least, it would be helpful to point out that Latter-day Saints in this small sample don’t mark It is no different from other Americans, while performing better on this measure than other predominantly white Christian denominations (with 34 percent of Latter-day Saints agreeing with this survey item on the threat of illegal immigrants, compared to 60% of white evangelical Protestants).

The fact that Latter-day Saints do better than some and about as well as others does not excuse xenophobia in our ranks. Like many, we still have a way to go. But context and details really matter. And in this case, the larger problem not mentioned by various commentators is the fact that the investigation in question there were only 97 Latter-day Saintswhich makes it difficult to tell us much about the Latter-day Saints with any accuracy. PRRI researchers themselves warn that “the number of Latter-day Saint cases in this report is 97. The results for this group should be interpreted with caution. »

Taking the Full Data Picture Seriously

As with any sensitive issue requiring further exploration, it can be helpful to draw on all data sources to understand what is really going on. Doing so with immigration confirms a fairly consistent trend in immigration. For example, most recently, Deseret News reporter Sam Benson common Results from the AEI Center for Survey of American Life demonstrate that although Latter-day Saints polled closely with white evangelical Protestants on many social issues, such as same-sex marriage and abortion, they there was a “radical difference” in immigration matters.

As Kelsey Eyre Hammond, the study’s program coordinator, confirmed, Latter-day Saints were much less likely than Protestants and Catholics to say they think immigrants arriving in the United States today pose a burden. on local communities by using more than their share of social services. . And they were also much less likely to agree that “to end illegal immigration, we need to make it more dangerous for migrants to cross the border, even if that means that some of them They could die.” (Only 6 percent of Latter-day Saints said they agreed, the lowest figure of any religious group surveyed.)

To dig deeper, this week we pulled numbers from the 2022 Cooperative Election Survey, in which 706 Latter-day Saints were asked to share their views on what “the U.S. government should do on immigration.” .

When asked if they favored granting “legal status to all illegal immigrants who have held a job and paid taxes for at least 3 years and have not been convicted of a crime,” most Latter-day Saints expressed support (61%).

If we restrict the analysis to just the 330 Latter-day Saints in the sample who identify as Republicans, 52% of Latter-day Saints still support this type of legal path to citizenship – the only major religious group to having a majority of this is what their Republican supporters do (42% of Protestants, 49% of Roman Catholics, 45% of Jews, and 39% of atheists expressed support for this idea).

Another question from the same 2022 survey tells the same story of relative Latter-day Saint favorability toward immigrants. Asked about the possibility of reducing “legal immigration by 50 percent over the next 10 years by eliminating the visa lottery and ending family migration,” about 44 percent of Latter-day Saints support decreasing immigration. legal immigration by these means, while Catholics and Protestants are respectively 50% and 52%. When we include only Republicans, a slight majority (54%) of Republican Latter-day Saints support reducing legal immigration through these means, while for Catholics and Protestants it is 67% and 65%, respectively. .

Since many Latter-day Saints are Republicans, it is not surprising that many members of the Church hold conservative views on immigration. But to get the full picture, we must recognize that Republican Latter-day Saints are also more pro-immigration than other Republicans.

In summary, while the investigation into “illegal immigrants poisoning the blood of our country” may be indicative of ugly attitudes on the part of Americans, including some Latter-day Saints, it is a stretch to view it as an indication particularly revealing of anything about Latter-day Saints. in particular, especially when the whole data set demonstrates something else and the sample size in this case was so small that the report itself warns us that the results should be interpreted with caution.