Immigration a higher priority for Americans than it was a year ago, new poll shows

By LINLEY SANDERS, HUMERA LODHI and JONATHAN J. COOPER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — More Americans say immigration should be a top focus for the U.S. government in 2025, as the country heads toward a new Republican administration in which President-elect Donald Trump has promised the mass deportations of migrants and an end to birthright citizenship.

About half of U.S. adults named immigration and border topics in an open-ended question that asked respondents to share up to five issues they want the government to work on this year, according to a December poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s up from about one-third who mentioned the topic as a government priority in an AP-NORC poll conducted the previous year.

The issue of immigration has risen in salience across the board — among Democrats and Republicans, men and women, and adults both young and old. But Republicans, in particular, have converged around this issue in recent years. About 7 in 10 Republicans say immigration or a U.S.-Mexico border wall should be a top focus, up from 45% just two years ago.

This means that Trump will return to the White House with his base, and much of the country, interested in his signature issue. That’s a marked contrast to when he left Washington four years ago with his successor, Democrat Joe Biden, offering a more welcoming posture toward migrants.

But even with the widespread uptick in concern about immigration, that issue is still overshadowed by economic worries. About three-quarters of Americans want the government to focus on addressing broad economic concerns, similar to the past few years. There’s a range of economic issues Americans want addressed — about 3 in 10 referenced general economic issues, a similar share pointed to inflation, and roughly 1 in 10 mentioned either unemployment or taxes.

About one-third of Americans identify foreign policy as an important issue, with health care issues and politics — both identified broadly — close behind.

Republicans are especially likely to want government action on immigration

Trump won back the White House with immigration playing a key role in his campaign, often disparaging migrants to the U.S. and claiming that they commit violent crimes, though studies have shown no link between immigration and crime.

Some of his immigration reforms are likely to face legal challenges as Trump seeks to sharply limit the number of immigrants welcome in the U.S. But addressing those issues remains paramount for Americans as he prepares to take office.

About 8 in 10 Republicans want the government to prioritize economic issues, while about 7 in 10 Republicans say immigration or the border wall should be a top priority.

Most Democrats, meanwhile, are focused on the economy, but they don’t have a clear second priority. Instead, about 4 in 10 name health care and health issues, a small uptick from a year earlier. About one-third of Democrats mention political issues, the environment or climate change, or immigration.

But even Democrats are more likely to want the government to make progress on immigration than they were the year before, when only about 2 in 10 Democrats considered it something that should be a primary focus for the federal government.

That doesn’t mean, though, that they align with Trump’s hard-line approach. One Democrat said the government should focus on “border control, not mass deportation,” while another said “better pathways to citizenship” should be the goal. In their responses to the poll, Republicans tended to mention “illegal immigration” and “a stronger border” as an important focus. One Republican supported “closing the border, deporting illegal immigrants, starting with criminals first.”

The focus among Republicans on immigration and the economy dovetails with two of the biggest challenges Biden confronted during his tenure, which saw both high inflation and sharp growth in migration.

Illegal border crossings reached a record level in 2023, adding fuel to Trump’s relentless focus on border security and his promise to deport migrants en masse. The numbers fell during 2024 after Biden announced a crackdown on asylum claims, but Trump argued those moves were too little, too late.

Americans under 30 really want the government to prioritize inflation

The youngest adults are particularly likely to want the government to work on economic issues.

Americans under 30 are significantly more likely than older adults to mention economic issues, inflation and personal financial topics as a vital focus for government in 2025. About 4 in 10 young adults name inflation, compared with roughly one-quarter of older adults. And about one-quarter of young adults say they want the government focused on housing costs, whereas only about 1 in 10 adults ages 60 or older say the same.

Trump made gains among young adults in 2024 compared with his performance four years earlier, but his youngest voters were much more motivated by the economy than by immigration, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters.

The same sentiment prevails as Trump prepares to take office. Compared with 2023, the December poll found, Americans under 30 are more likely to highlight general economic issues and immigration as things they want government to focus on — but they are much less focused on immigration than older adults. Only about one-third of adults under 30 said immigration should be a focus, compared with about 6 in 10 adults 60 or older.

Older Americans are also broadly focused on the economy, but their priorities are a little different — for instance, about 1 in 10 Americans over 60 want the government focused on Social Security in the coming year. Very few Americans under 30 mentioned Social Security as a concern.

Lodhi reported from New York, and Cooper reported from Phoenix.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,251 adults was conducted Dec. 5-9, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.