By Anita Snow
Associated Press
In the face of anti-immigrant rhetoric emerging from this year's midterm elections, roughly one in three American adults believes attempts are being made to replace native-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gain.
About three in 10 also worry that rising immigration is causing native-born Americans to lose their economic, political and cultural clout, according to a survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Republicans are more likely than Democrats to fear a loss of influence because of immigration
, 36% to 27%.
These views reflect growing anti-immigrant sentiment on social media and cable TV, with conservative commentators like Tucker Carlson exploiting fears that newcomers could undermine native-born citizens.
A migrant waits on the Mexican side of the border after US Customs and Border Protection agents detained a migrant couple crossing the border on the beach in Tijuana, Mexico, on January 26. Marco Ugarte / AP File
In their most extreme manifestation, these increasingly public views in the United States and Europe are based on a decades-old conspiracy theory known as the "great replacement," a false claim that native-born populations are being overrun by immigrants. non-whites who are eroding, and will eventually erase, their culture and values.
The once taboo term became the slogan of a losing conservative candidate in the recent French presidential election.
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“I firmly believe that Democrats, from Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi down, want to bring illegal immigrants here and give them the right to vote immediately,” said Sally Gansz, 80.
In reality, only US citizens can vote in state and federal elections, and obtaining citizenship is a process that often takes years.
Gansz, a white woman who identifies as a Republican, has lived her entire life in Trinidad, Colorado, where about half the population of 8,300 identifies as Hispanic, most with roots stretching back centuries to Spanish settlers. region of.
"Isn't it obvious that I see Fox?"
joked Gansz, who said he watches the conservative channel almost daily, including the top-rated Fox News Channel show
Tucker Carlson Tonight
, from one of the main proponents of those ideas.
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“Demographic change is the key to the Democratic Party's political ambitions,” Carlson said on the show last year.
"In order to gain and maintain power, the Democrats plan to change the population of the country."
Those views are not shared by most Americans
;
in fact, two-thirds feel that the diversity of the country's population makes it stronger and more favorable than opposing a path to legal status for immigrants who entered illegally as children.
But the deep anxieties expressed by some Americans help explain how the issue mobilizes those who oppose immigration.
"I don't feel like immigration really affects me or undermines American values," said Daniel Valdes, 43, a registered Democrat who works in finance for an aeronautics company on Florida's space coast.
"I'm pretty indifferent to all of this."
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Valdes' maternal grandparents came to the United States from Mexico and he said he has "many" relatives in the border city of El Paso, Texas.
He has Puerto Rican roots on his father's side.
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While Republicans care more than Democrats about immigration,
the most intense anxiety was among those most prone to conspiratorial thinking
.
That is defined as those who are most likely to agree with a number of statements, such as that much of people's lives are "controlled by plots hatched in secret places" and "big events like wars, recessions, and the results of elections are controlled by small groups of people who are secretly working against the rest of us.” Overall, 17% of Americans believe that native-born Americans are losing influence due to the growing immigrant population and that a group of people in the United States are trying to replace native Americans with immigrants who agree with their political views.
U.S. authorities detained migrants more than 221,000 times at the Mexican border in March, a 22-year high, creating a tense political landscape for Democrats as the Biden Administration prepares to lift the Title 42 rule on May 23.
Pandemic powers have been used to expel migrants more than 1.8 million times since that health guideline was invoked in March 2020 in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Newly arrived immigrants are barred from voting in federal elections because they are not citizens, and obtaining citizenship is an arduous process that can take a decade or more, if they are successful.
In most cases, they must first obtain permanent residence and then wait five more years before they can apply for citizenship.
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Research has found no evidence that people who are not authorized to vote do so widely, including foreigners.
For example, an audit of the Georgia voter list completed this year found fewer than 2,000 instances of foreign nationals attempting to register and vote in the last 25 years, none of which were successful.
Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters is among Republicans running for office this year who have seized on concerns about a changing population.
"What the left really wants to do is change the demographics of this country," he said in a video recorded in October.
"They want to do that so they can consolidate power and never lose another election."
