May 11, 2015

What Happened in Vegas ... Hillary Clinton's Views on Immigration

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arriving at an immigration roundtable in Las Vegas on May 5. REUTERS/Mike Blake

Last week, Hillary Rodham Clinton sat down with a group of students in Las Vegas on and endorsed President Obama’s controversial executive actions on immigration. She signaled that she would go beyond that to “fight for comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship.” She also criticized the proposals made by Republican candidates for legal status versus full citizenship as a stalking horse for granting them “second-class status.”

While several media headlines characterized Clinton’s statements as being “stunningly aggressive” [Vox], in line with immigration activists [The National Journal] and a “pivot to the left” [Politico], in reality Clinton’s views are fairly mainstream. Public opinion trends over the past two decades suggest a real readiness for immigration reform. Read more in the full article in the Monkey Cage blog from the Washington Post by Dina Smeltz (@roguepollster), senior fellow on public opinion and foreign policy at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and Sara McElmurry (@s_mcelmurry),  the council’s assistant director for immigration. 

About

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs highlights critical shifts in American public thinking on US foreign policy through public opinion surveys and research conducted under the Lester Crown Center on US Foreign Policy. 

The annual Chicago Council Survey, first conducted in 1974, is a valuable resource for policymakers, academics, media, and the general public. The Council also surveys American leaders in government, business, academia, think tanks, and religious organizations biennially to compare trends in their thinking with overall trends. And collaborating with partner organizations, the survey team periodically conducts parallel surveys of public opinion in other regions of the world to compare with US public opinion. 

The Running Numbers blog features regular commentary and analysis from the Council’s public opinion and US foreign policy research team, including a series of flash polls of a select group of foreign policy experts to assess their opinions on critical foreign policy topics driving the news.

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| By Craig Kafura

Expert Panel Survey: US Focus on the Denuclearization of North Korea

Despite expectations for the meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, their recent summit in Hanoi ended with no agreement toward denuclearization. With that in mind, we asked our panel of foreign policy experts whether the United States should continue to focus primarily on denuclearization, or shift to arms control and non-proliferation.

| By Dina Smeltz

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At a Middle East conference this month in Warsaw, Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and Mideast adviser, said that the administration will unveil its much-vaunted Middle East peace plan after the April 9 Israeli elections.

| By Karl Friedhoff

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The Trump administration has taken a hard line on China, but has failed to convince the American public or many allies to follow suit. Instead, publics around the world now see the United States as a major threat.

| By Craig Kafura

2018: Year in Chicago Council Surveys

It's been a busy, eventful year around the world. Throughout 2018, the Council's polling team has captured public and opinion leader attitudes on some of the most pressing foreign policy issues, including US-Russia relations, American views of China, public support for internationalism and trade, and how the rising generation of Millennials think about American foreign policy.

| By Karl Friedhoff

Confidence in Congress Low

As the House becomes majority Democrat, there is low confidence among the American public for Congress--and several other institutions--to shape policies that benefit the United States.

| By Craig Kafura

Public Support for Foreign Aid Programs

Past surveys have found that Americans want to cut US spending on foreign assistance and dramatically overestimate how much the US spends on those programs. When asked to construct their own US budget in the 2018 Chicago Council Survey, Americans allocate far more than the US actually spends. 

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