A notable polling lesson from the 2024 election has been the danger of over-reliance on individual polls, especially when specific findings (Harris ahead in Iowa) depart from generally accepted reality. In sensitive matters, it has become far too tempting for experts to seize on an abnormal result as evidence for something definitive, while leaving out other details or other data.

This also happens with faith journalism. For example, in a survey recently picked up by the media, it was reported that “nearly one-third of US Latter-day Saints agree that immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood’ of the nation.” But that’s not what the survey asked for. Respondents were asked if they supported the following: “Immigrants illegal entry into the country today they are poisoning the blood of our country” (our emphasis).

The notion that a country’s blood is “poisoned” by a certain group has an undeniably dark history. The closing paragraphs of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf warn of a “the age of racial poisoning” – earlier asserts against “any mixing of Aryan blood with that of inferior peoples” (including any Jew whom he says “poisons the blood of others”). Hitler claimed that this so-called “blood poisoning” was the root of “all the great cultures of the past perish”.

A larger context of darkening American attitudes toward immigrants

Therefore, observers are not wrong to express concern about any Americans adopting similar hostile attitudes. Although Americans have generally held positive attitudes towards immigration in recent decades, that a moved in recent years, with repeated surveys pointing most Americans unhappy with the border crisis and immigration topped Gallup.the most important issue” list among Americans polled. This is especially true for conservatives and people of faithwith Republican concerns about immigration at a “all the time up,” according to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

But in grappling with a way forward as a country, it is essential to have a clear understanding of the available data. And as survey researchers know well, how exactly a question is phrased can drastically change the answers you get. In this case, the PRRI organization QUALIFIES his question regarding illegal immigration, clearly prompting respondents to point out that immigrants are, by definition, people who commit illegal acts.

The survey question was, knowingly or not, worded in such a way as to likely conjure up images of traffickers, sex traffickers and the like to get people to give an anti-immigrant response. Given the way the question is asked, we’re not surprised that he got answers that make a substantial minority of Americans seem xenophobic.

This includes 19% of black Protestants, 23% of Jews, and 27-30% of Catholics and Hispanic Protestants, showing that surprisingly sizable numbers of these ethnic minorities answered yes to the same question.

Since most still believe that immigration must occur legally, it is perhaps understandable that sizable subsets support a survey question expressing premonitions about the impact of illegal entry. But it’s also important to note that the best data pushes back on the excessive criminality of those entering the country illegally. One analysis Texas arrest records found undocumented immigrants arrested at less than half the rate of natural-born U.S. citizens. And Stanford research dating back to the 1960s find immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than the US-born

More than that, Walker Wright summary earlier this year, how much benefit to the American economy comes from the millions of immigrants who enter the US legally each year, with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints discouraging own members over the years from immigrating from one country to another without proper documentation.

Latter-day Saints’ relative positivity toward immigration

Historically, Latter-day Saints have been an outlier in their more positive views on immigration. In a report published in 2015, David E. Campbell, Christopher F. Karpowitz, and J. Quin Monson impart sociological data on Latter-day Saints in American political life that showed church members are “more accepting of immigrants than most other Americans, especially in contrast to evangelicals.”

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

The authors hypothesized that the high percentage of Latter-day Saints serving missions in other countries “encourages an empathetic perspective on illegal immigrants” because most members have “seen firsthand the extreme poverty that forces migrants into the U.S. illegally.” .

They added that the church’s leadership “has consistently been a voice of compassion on immigration,” pointing to their vocal support in previous years for immigration reforms that “balance a law-and-order mentality with compassion for immigrants and a desire strong policy. that keep families together.”

“Interpret with caution”

The most glaring problem with survey interpretation is the small sample size. Only 97 Latter-day Saints out of a US Latter-day Saint 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 the Latter-day Saints in this small sample do not register different from other Americans, too, scoring better on this measure than other predominantly white Christian denominations (with 34% of Latter-day Saints agreeing with that item on the survey about the threat of illegal immigrants, compared to 60% of white evangelical Protestants).

The fact that Latter-day Saints are doing better than some and almost as well as the rest does not excuse xenophobia in our ranks. Like many, we have a way to go. But context and details really matter. And in this case, the bigger problem not mentioned by various commentators is that the survey in question it had only 97 Latter-day Saintswhich makes it difficult to tell much about Latter-day Saints with any kind of accuracy. PRRI researchers themselves warn that “The number of cases for Latter-day Saints 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 matter that requires further exploration, it can be useful to look at the whole picture of the data sources to understand what is actually going on. Doing this with immigration confirms a fairly consistent pattern when it comes to immigration. For example, more recently, Deseret News reporter Sam Benson impart findings from AEI’s American Life Survey Center showing that while Latter-day Saints polled closely with white evangelical Protestants on many social issues, such as gay marriage and abortion, there was a “dramatic difference” regarding immigration.

As Kelsey Eyre Hammond, program coordinator for the study, confirmed, Latter-day Saints were far less likely than Protestants and Catholics to say they believe immigrants coming to the U.S. today burden local communities by using more than their share of services social. . And they were also much less likely to agree that “to stop illegal immigration, we need to make it more dangerous for migrants to cross the border, even if it means some of them might die.” (Only 6 percent of Latter-day Saints said they agreed, the lowest faith group surveyed.)

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

Asked if they support granting “legal status to all illegal immigrants who have worked and paid taxes for at least 3 years and have not been convicted of any crime,” a majority of Latter-day Saints expressed support (61%) .

If you limit your analysis to just the 330 Latter-day Saints in the sample who identify as Republicans, 52 percent of Latter-day Saints still support this type of legal path to citizenship—the only large religious group with a majority of their Republican adherents do so (42% of Protestants, 49% of Roman Catholics, 45% of Jews and 39% of atheists expressed support for the same).

Another question in the same 2022 survey tells the same story of the relative favorability of Latter-day Saints 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-based migration,” about 44 percent of Latter-day Saints support decreasing legal immigration by these means, while Catholics and Protestants are 50% and 52%, respectively. When I subsample it to include only Republicans, a slight majority (54%) of Latter-day Saint Republicans support reducing legal immigration by these means, compared to 67% and 65% for Catholics and Protestants, respectively.

Since many Latter-day Saints are Republicans, it should come as no surprise that many members of the Church take conservative views on immigration. But a complete picture must recognize that Latter-day Saint Republicans are also more immigration-friendly than other Republicans.

In summary, while the poll about “illegal immigrants poisoning the blood of our country” may indicate the ugly attitudes of Americans, including some Latter-day Saints, it is a stretch to see it as indicating anything specifically about Latter-day Saints . in particular, especially when the bigger picture of the data proves otherwise and the sample size in this case was so small that the report itself warns us that the results should be interpreted with caution.