Most Americans say immigrants do the jobs we don’t want to do

(TNND) — Most Americans don’t think immigrants are taking jobs coveted by our citizens.

The Pew Research Center published survey results Monday that showed 75% of Americans believe undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs that U.S. citizens don’t want, while 61% said the same of legal immigrants.

Ninety percent of Vice President Kamala Harris’ supporters said undocumented immigrants fill unwanted jobs, while 59% of former President Donald Trump’s supporters said the same.

Seventy percent of Harris supporters said legal immigrants mostly fill unwanted jobs, while 52% of Trump supporters said the same.

The Pew Research Center said there were over 30 million immigrants in the U.S. workforce as of 2022, which amounted to 18% of the total workforce.

Lawful immigrants made up the majority of the immigrant workforce at 22.2 million, the Pew Research Center said.

Immigrants made up about a quarter of workers in the agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting sector, as well as construction, according to the Pew Research Center.

The U.S. immigrant population last year had the largest increase in more than 20 years, according to a separate Pew Research Center analysis that was recently published.

The immigrant population in 2023 increased by about 1.6 million to reach a record 47.8 million immigrants living in the U.S.

Immigrants accounted for 14.3% of the U.S. population in 2023, up a lot from 4.7% in 1970 but still below the record share of 14.8% in 1890.

Still, the immigrant share of the population is now the highest since 1910.

The most common countries of origin as of last year were Mexico (10.9 million people, or 23% of the total), India (2.9 million, or 6%), China (2.4 million, or 5%) and the Philippines (2.1 million, or 4%).