LatinaLista — A newly released Pew Hispanic report, Illegal Immigration Backlash Worries, Divides Latinos, highlights the fact that Latinos don’t all think the same.
In fact, they don’t all think the same of each other.
For example, in 2007, 50 percent of Latinos said that illegal immigration had a positive impact on Latinos already living in the United States. Today, only 29 percent feel that way.
Seventy percent of foreign born Latinos report discrimination being a major problem for Latinos to succeed in the country while only 49 percent of the native born feel that way.
The differences don’t stop there:
Fewer than seven-in-ten native-born Hispanics say immigrants strengthen the country, while 85% of immigrant Hispanics say the same.
Yet, though there are differences, the Pew Report reveals that when it comes to how immigrants should be treated, the Constitution of the United States and the quality of their lives, the Latino community is more in agreement than not.
On birthright citizenship, nearly eight-in-ten (78%) Latinos say the Constitution should be left as is, compared with 56% of the general public who say the same.
And when it comes to who should enforce the nation’s immigration laws, more than three-quarters (77%) Latinos say it should be the exclusive responsibility of federal authorities, while just 15% say the local police should play a more active role.
Fully 78% of Latinos say they support in-state tuition rates for unauthorized immigrant students who graduate from a high school in their state and have been accepted into a public college or university.
Nearly three-in-four (73%) Latinos say they disapprove of workplace raids, unchanged from 2007 and 2008.
More than six-in-ten (61%) Hispanics say they disapprove of building more fences on the nation’s borders.
Three-in-ten (30%) Latinos say that one of the reasons unauthorized immigrants come to the U.S. is to have a child here; 64% say this is not the case.
