Your Vote Ohio
This package is part of a year-long Your Vote Ohio project in which Ohio news organizations are collaborating to bring you stories to advance democracy and reclaim your voice in American politics.
The poll of 1,089 Ohioans was conducted by the Center for Marketing and Opinion Research and the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. Interviews of Ohio citizens 18 and older were conducted throughout the month of August. It was a recall survey of 1,972 respondents originally surveyed in May-June 2016. The margin of error on the August survey is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
For the latest in political news, like our Ohio Politics Facebook page and follow our team on Twitter at @Ohio_Politics.
Donald Trump’s biggest applause line at rallies in Ohio continues to be a promise: “Don’t worry; we’re going to build a wall.”
It’s a line that oddly resonates in a state where the experience with immigration is far different from most of the country.
Only about 4 percent of the state is foreign-born — roughly a third of the national average. And of that tiny group of immigrants, fewer than one in five is here without the necessary papers, according to a new report by the Migration Policy Institute.
Polling of Ohioans for the Your Vote Ohio project shows an odd disconnect on the issue. Asked in an open-ended question to name the top issues in 2016, immigration doesn't make the top 10.
But when asked to define the reasons they like or dislike Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Trump’s stand on immigration stands out as key driver both for those who like Trump and those who dislike him.
In an effort to tap into voter sentiments on a variety of topics, Ohio news organizations are collaborating this election year to bring you Your Vote Ohio. Today’s package on immigration provides facts, voices and context to an issue that is top of mind for many Ohioans.
Differing perspectives
For Linda Riley, who grew up near Steubenville, where the collapse of steel and coal have left many out of work, immigration is intertwined with the economy and shouldn’t be treated as a separate issue.
“They’re taking jobs away from citizens,” she said. “And everybody likes to say that they’ll take jobs that other people won’t. Well, how do we know that? Let’s get them out of here and we’ll see.”
But for immigrant families, the issue is more personal. Elizabeth Perez’s husband Marcos was deported for not being in the country with proper documents. At a town hall in Cleveland in March, she pressed Clinton on how she would change policy and practice to allow Marcos to return to the U.S. from Mexico.
“Along with my husband, there have been over 2 million people deported since 2010,” Perez said. “And almost a quarter of them are parents of U.S. citizen children.”
This debate is being carried out in every corner of the state.
Chris Howard, 52, grew up in East Cleveland and is training for a data-entry job after massive layoffs at the automotive parts plant where he worked for years.
He maintains that a porous border “gives the immigrants a chance to work for less money and … people tend to hire them first.”
Census data show that immigrants are indeed less likely to be jobless than native Ohioans — by a little more than a percentage point. And they’re far more likely to have jobs in private businesses rather than government.
Research by George Borjas – a Harvard economist cited by groups trying to slow immigration – validates Howard. It says immigrants boost the U.S. economy by $1.6 trillion a year, but most of that goes to the immigrants themselves and suppresses wages for native-born workers.
But other studies challenge Borjas’ conclusions. The Partnership for a New American Economy, which advocates for a path to citizenship for those here illegally, maintains immigrants are job creators too. More than 120,000 Ohioans work for small- and medium-sized firms owned by immigrants, according to the partnership.
“They create jobs,” said Jeremy Robbins, the nonpartisan group’s executive director. “Now, are there some people where there is tension? We know there are a lot of Americans who are hurting, who need better employment, who need work. But the answer isn’t to close our borders. The answer is to be smarter about our immigration system.”
Who are they?
More than a third of Ohio’s immigrants came from Asia, according to the U.S. Census, and Latin America doesn’t even rank second as a region of origin.
But when it comes to unauthorized immigrants, Latin America is a strong number one, according to the Migration Policy Institute report.
It’s that population that breeds the most resentment, particularly in parts of the state that have struggled the most economically.
Ohio’s foreign-born population is clustered largely around its big cities. Franklin County has the most and has been growing the fastest. But mid-sized counties like Summit and Montgomery have seen growth, too.
Lagging far behind is the region along the Ohio River, which continues to lead Ohio in unemployment. It’s in counties like those that Trump prevailed over Ohio Gov. John Kasich in the March Primary Election, which Kasich won easily.
Reanne Frank, a demographer at Ohio State University, said high unemployment creates a familiar pattern.
Immigrants “have very little to do with the issues that these communities are facing. They’re not even there,” Frank said. “But some of these communities are going through transformations and some people are being left behind. And these kinds of moments are when immigration as a scapegoat gains a certain amount of traction.”
Another possible source of frustration: The immigrants who do come here tend to do well.
Ohio’s immigrants tend to be more educated and have higher incomes than the immigrant population nationally and Ohioans in general, according to the Migration Policy Institute report. More than 20 percent of foreign-born residents have a bachelor’s degree compared with less than 16 percent of native Ohioans. Even among immigrants without documents, 37 percent have at least some college.
Average earnings, the report found, are about 18 percent higher among immigrants than among native Ohioans.
The wall
It’s not clear how impactful building a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexican border would have on the undocumented immigrant population in Ohio because as many as half of those here without documents are what the Migration Policy Institute’s Jeanna Batalova calls “visa-overstayers.” These are people who “had legitimate visas when they arrived and then they overstayed for one reason or another,” said Batalova, a senior analyst for the institute.
Included in this group are students from Asian countries attracted to Ohio’s universities, she said.
Batalova said the comparatively higher education and income levels among Ohio’s immigrants can be explained by the number who come here for educational reasons.
Madhu Sharma, director of immigrant services at the International Institute of Akron, said she believes immigration strengthens a community in many ways.
But Sharma, an attorney and an immigrant herself, understands why acceptance is so hard for some.
“It’s the same fear that makes people come to our borders,” she said. “This fear of being cut off from resources of being able to take care of the people we love.”
