KFF Survey of Immigrants: Views and Experiences in the Early Days of President Trump's Second Term

The KFF Survey of Immigrants: Views and Experiences in the Early Days of President Trump’s Second Term was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at KFF. The survey was conducted March 6-April 13, 2025, online and by telephone among a nationally representative sample of 511 U.S. immigrants in English (394), Chinese (20), Spanish (83), Korean (13), and Vietnamese (1). The sample was reached through the SSRS/KFF Immigrants Panel either online (n=469) or over the phone (n=42). The SSRS/KFF Immigrants Panel is a nationally representative probability-based panel of immigrants where panel members were recruited randomly in one of three ways: (a) Through invitations mailed to respondents randomly sampled from an Address-Based Sample (ABS) provided by Marketing Systems Groups (MSG) through the U.S. Postal Service’s Computerized Delivery Sequence (CDS); (b) a random digit dial telephone sample of prepaid cell phone numbers obtained through MSG from a dual-frame random digit dial (RDD) sample provided by MSG or (c) calling back telephone numbers from recent SSRS RDD polls whose final disposition was “language barrier,” meaning the person answering the phone spoke a language other than English or Spanish.

An initial invitation letter to the survey was sent to panel members via USPS asking them to take the survey online or by calling a toll-free number. Invitation letters were also sent via email to panelists who provided an email address during registration. Outbound call attempts were also made to panelists who provided a phone number. Online respondents received a $10 electronic gift card incentive, and phone respondents received a $10 incentive check by mail.

The sample was weighted to match the sample’s demographics to the national U.S. adult immigrant population using data from the 2023 American Communities Survey. The demographic variables included in weighting are home ownership, number of adults in household, presence of children in household, census region, length of time in the U.S., English proficiency, citizenship status, gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, and country of origin. Weights account for recontact propensity and the design of the panel recruitment survey.

In order to ensure data quality, cases were removed if they failed both quality checks: (1) had over 30% item non-response, and (2) had a length less than one quarter of the mean length by mode. In addition, respondents were asked their country of birth, and if they stated they were born in the U.S., they were asked to re-confirm that response. A small percentage of respondents (n=7; 1%) re-confirmed that they were born in the U.S. Based on this last criterion, 7 cases were removed.

The margin of sampling error including the design effect for the immigrant adults sample is plus or minus 7 percentage points. Numbers of respondents and margines of sampling error for key subgroups are shown in the table below. For results based on other subgroups, the margin of sampling error may be higher. Sample sizes and margins of sampling error for other subgroups are available by request. Sampling error is only one of many potential sources of error and there may be other unmeasured error in this or any other public opinion poll. KFF Public Opinion and Survey Research is a charter member of the Transparency Initiative of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.