WASHINGTON — More Americans think immigrants in the United States illegally face discrimination than any other subgroup in the country.
Next on the list of those perceived to face the most discrimination are transgender people and Black people, according to Pew Research Center survey data released last week.
Viewed through the lens of partisanship, Republicans sense more discrimination against white people than Democrats. At the same time, declining numbers of Republicans see discrimination based on race or ethnicity compared to last year, while the figures for Democrats have held steady.
“Smaller shares of Americans now say there is at least some discrimination against Black, Hispanic and Asian people than last year, with the changes driven primarily by Republicans,” reads a Pew report on the survey. Pew detected “virtually no changes” in the attitudes of Democrats and those who lean Democrat on discrimination questions in the last year.
The Pew report didn’t delve into possible explanations for the findings. But the revelation that immigrants in the country illegally are perceived by the largest bloc of survey respondents as facing discrimination comes amid President Donald Trump’s push to detain and deport the population from the country, a popular issue for many.
In all, 82% of respondents say such immigrants face some or a lot of discrimination.
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Transgender people, meanwhile, have been the target of a growing number of “anti-trans bills” in recent years in state legislatures around the country, according to Trans Legislation Trackeran independent research group. The Pew numbers show that 77% of survey respondents think the population faces a lot or some discrimination, second after immigrants here illegally.
Next on the list, and the share of respondents who think the varied groups face some or a lot of discrimination, are Black people, 74%; Muslims, 74%; Hispanic people, 72%; Jewish people, 72%; and gay and lesbian people, 70%. Next are Asian people, 66%; immigrants in the United States legally, 65%; and women, 64%.
“While there is a widespread perception that immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally face discrimination, 65% say immigrants who are legally in this country also face a lot of or some bias,” said the Pew report.
Those perceived to face the least amount of discrimination are people who live in cities, 33%; atheists, 33%; men, 34%; white people, 38%; and people who didn’t go to college, 39%.
Looking at differences between Republican and Republican-leaning respondents and their Democrat counterparts, “the partisan patterns are consistent,” Pew said. “Republicans see more discrimination than Democrats against white people, evangelicals, men and the religious; Democrats see more discrimination overall.”
Some of the specific partisan contrasts:
- Among Republicans, 55% think white people face some or a lot of discrimination compared to 21% of Democrats.
- 57% of Republicans think evangelical Christians face discrimination compared to 31% of Democrats.
- 90% of Democrats think gay or lesbian people face discrimination compared to 50% of Republicans.
- 94% of Democrats think Black people face discrimination versus 54% among Republicans.
- 84% of Democrats think immigrants here illegally face discrimination compared to 45% of Republicans.
- 90% of Democrats think Hispanic people face discrimination compared to 54% among Republicans.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
