Survey Report

The public has mixed reactions to the U.S. response to the influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving in Europe in recent weeks. By a narrow 51%-45% margin, more approve than disapprove of the U.S. decision to increase the number of refugees it accepts to help deal with this situation.

When asked to assess the United States’ response to the refugee situation more generally, 44% say the U.S. should be doing more, while 19% say it should be doing less; 31% say the U.S. is doing about what it should.

The latest national poll by the Pew Research Center, conducted Sept. 22-27 among 1,502 adults, finds that the migrant crisis has registered widely with the public: 55% say they have heard a lot about the large number of migrants fleeing violence in Syria and other countries and entering Europe, and an additional 32% have heard a little. Just 12% have heard nothing about the migrant crisis.

Opinion about the U.S. response to the European migrant situation is divided along partisan lines. By more than two-to-one (69%-29%), Democrats approve of the U.S. decision to increase the number of refugees it accepts. By about the same margin (67% to 30%), Republicans disapprove of this decision.

Half of Democrats (50%) say the U.S. should be doing more to address the refugee situation, while just 11% say it should be doing less and 35% say the U.S. is doing about what it should. Among Republicans opinion is divided: 35% say the U.S. should be doing more, 29% say it is doing about what it should and 28% say it should be doing less.

Differences by Age, Ethnicity in Views of U.S. Decision to Accept More Refugees

The partisan and demographic differences in views of the decision to accept more refugees mirror differences in opinions of immigrants and their impact on the United States.

Hispanics are particularly supportive of the U.S. decision to increase the cap on the number of refugees it accepts over the next few years: 66% approve of this decision while just 27% disapprove. Blacks also approve of the decision by a 58%-39% margin. Among whites, opinion is divided: 46% approve, 50% disapprove.

Younger adults are much more likely to approve of the decision than are older adults. About six-in-ten (63%) of those ages 18-29 say they approve of the U.S. accepting more refugees, compared with just 40% of those age 65 and older.

Across educational lines, 67% of those with post-graduate degrees support increasing the number of refugees the U.S. accepts, as do 61% of those with college degrees. Among those without a college degree, about as many disapprove as approve of the decision.

Views of the U.S. decision to increase the number of refugees it accepts also differ by religious affiliation. About six-in-ten Catholics (59%) – including 69% of Hispanic Catholics and about half (51%) of white Catholics – say they approve of the decision to accept more refugees. White evangelical Protestants disapprove of the decision by a 65%-31% margin; views among white mainline Protestants are more mixed (53% disapprove-42% approve). By contrast, black Protestants say they approve of the U.S. raising its refugee cap (58%-39%).

There are more modest demographic differences when it comes to assessments of the United States’ response to the refugee situation more generally.

Overall, 44% say the U.S. should be doing more to address the refugee situation, 19% say it should be doing less and 31% say it is doing about what it should.

Among those who approve of the U.S. decision to increase the number of refugees it accepts, 51% say the U.S. should be doing more to address the situation; just 4% say it should be doing less and 40% say it is doing about what it should.

Those who disapprove of the U.S. decision on the refugee cap hold more mixed views about the U.S.’s efforts: As many say the U.S. should be doing less to address the situation as say it should be doing more (37% each); 21% say the U.S. is doing about what it should.

The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted September 22-27, 2015 among a national sample of 1,502 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (525 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 977 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 560 who had no landline telephone). The survey was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. A combination of landline and cell phone random digit dial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest adult male or female who is now at home. Interviews in the cell sample were conducted with the person who answered the phone, if that person was an adult 18 years of age or older. For detailed information about our survey methodology, see https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/methodology/u-s-survey-research/

The combined landline and cell phone sample are weighted using an iterative technique that matches gender, age, education, race, Hispanic origin and nativity and region to parameters from the 2013 Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and population density to parameters from the Decennial Census. The sample also is weighted to match current patterns of telephone status (landline only, cell phone only, or both landline and cell phone), based on extrapolations from the 2014 National Health Interview Survey. The weighting procedure also accounts for the fact that respondents with both landline and cell phones have a greater probability of being included in the combined sample and adjusts for household size among respondents with a landline phone. The margins of error reported and statistical tests of significance are adjusted to account for the survey’s design effect, a measure of how much efficiency is lost from the weighting procedures.

The following table shows the unweighted sample sizes and the error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence for different groups in the survey:

Sample sizes and sampling errors for other subgroups are available upon request.

In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.

Pew Research Center is a nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization and a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder.