Many Europeans mistakenly think most immigrants are illegal, poll shows | Migration

Many Europeans mistakenly think most migrants are in their country illegally, according to a poll that found overwhelming opposition to any increase in migration and strong support for a significant reduction in numbers, including deportation.

Pluralities or majorities of between 44% and 60% of respondents polled in a survey by YouGov in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and Spain said they thought there “many” or “somewhat” more migrants were staying illegally than legally.

Estimates of people staying illegally in European countries are significantly lower than official figures for the foreign-born population. A 2023 study, for example, found that only 21% of immigrants in France had at one point been “undocumented”.

In Poland, the only central European country surveyed, the public was divided, with 36% believing there were more illegal than legal migrants in the country against 28% who believed the opposite, and 22% who thought the proportions were the same.

The seven-country survey found that majorities or near-majorities in all countries, ranging from 49% in Poland to 60% in Germany, favoured a “large decrease” in the number of migrants allowed to come to their country, with some still permitted.

Across the seven countries, about half – between 46% and 53% – said they supported a complete freeze on new arrivals entering the country, plus the departure of “large numbers” of recent migrants.

Large majorities (64%-82%) opposed any significant increase in the number of new migrants allowed to enter and most also rejected immigration remaining the same, with support for this scenario exceeding opposition only in Poland and Denmark.

Asked which migrants should be required to leave, respondents who said they favoured deportation tended to choose those who had “broken the rules”: people who “came to claim benefits” (78-91%), irregular asylum seekers (73-85%), and those without a valid work visa, working in unskilled jobs (66-85%).

Enthusiasm for removing other “legal” groups – such as asylum seekers who follow the due process, foreign students and people with work visas in highly skilled or shortage professions – was much lower, with doctors the most appreciated group.

Only 15% to 24% of respondents who had supported mass deportations favoured the removal of doctors with work visas – equivalent to about 8-12% of the broader public, a “rough ceiling for the most hardcore anti-migrant sentiment levels”, YouGov said.

The survey suggested that respondents across all six countries understood there were economic and other trade-offs involved in reducing legal migration, and were generally less likely to favour lower migration if it entailed meaningful downsides.

Asked whether they would prefer reducing immigration to maintaining health service staffing levels, filling skilled job vacancies and attracting the best and brightest to their country, respondents invariably said they favoured those alternatives.

Far fewer, however, were prepared to accept “increasing the numbers of people paying tax”, “improving the wider economy” and “maintaining legal international humanitarian obligations” as valid trade-offs for not reducing migration.

When it came to opinions about whether migration had been mostly good or bad for their country, majorities of between 56 and 75% said illegal migration had been bad. Attitudes to legal migration, however were much more mixed.

The Spanish were the most positive, with 42% seeing legal migration as mostly good, and the French and Germans the most negative, with 38% and 39% respectively saying even legal migration had been bad, against 22% and 24% saying the reverse.

Similarly, while majorities of 68-81% said illegal immigration in their country had been too high, most French people (52%) and Germans (57%) also believed levels of legal migration had been excessive, as did 48% of Poles and Britons.

Moreover, majorities of between 53% and 57% in France, Italy and Germany, and 47% of Poles, also felt even legal migrants did not “share the same values” as them, while 49-57% of French, Italians and Germans said legal migrants were not integrating well.

“It’s clear that legal migration dramatically outweighs illegal migration, but that’s not to say that immigration would disappear as an issue if only Europeans could be made aware of this,” the pollster said.

It said concerns about immigration went well beyond “the economic terms by which higher immigration is typically justified”, adding: “Anyone seeking to address the issue will need to engage with deeper anxieties about identity, integration and national values.”