White, Professional, or Female Immigrants Only, Please: U.S. Americans' Desired Social Distance from Immigrants

The United States of America has a long history of discriminatory immigration and refugee policies that have resulted in disparities of health, education, employment and wages for many. This official discrimination is reflected in the personal prejudice of many U.S. Americans. In this study, we compare the social distance that participants desire from immigrants by randomly assigning participants (N = 616) a fictional vignette that alters the nation of origin (England, India, Syria), gender (man, woman) and occupation (doctor, teacher, janitor) of an immigrant. Participants demonstrated a preference for professional immigrants, women immigrants, and immigrants from England while controlling for age, though there were no significant interaction effects. These findings imply that U.S. American’s attitudes about immigrants and immigration are not objective. We believe that these prejudicial attitudes are reflected in policy and law, suggesting a need to construct processes to protect such policies from subjective and prejudicial attitudes.