What drives American views on immigration is often not pretty.
Media coverage in this country has a huge effect on how people form their political views. I just finished reading this article in the Washington Post about a study done comparing reactions to news about immigrants of Latino origin versus Immigrants of Russian origin and the results are shocking. People react in a much more negative manner to stories about Latinos and it sparks an “English-Only” reaction among White readers.
Unsurprisingly, those who read a negatively-toned immigration story expressed less support for immigration. But the impact of seeing a negative story featuring a Mexican immigrant was double the size of a negative story about the Russian Immigrant.
