Perceptions on who faces discrimination in US have changed, poll finds. See how
Americans’ perceptions of discrimination in the United States are different now than four years ago — with a new group being recognized as facing the most discrimination, a poll found.
Immigrants without legal status are now being perceived by the public as experiencing more discrimination than any other group in the U.S., and the number of Americans who said Asian people and Black people are being discriminated against has decreased significantly since 2021, according to a July 31 Associated Press-NORC poll.
The survey of 1,437 U.S. adults was taken July 10-14 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
While the earlier poll came on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic — a time when many were worried about incidents of violence against Asian Americans because of the pandemic’s reported origin — and nearly a year after the death of George Floyd while communities were still holding sweeping demonstrations against racial inequality in the country, the recent poll comes as President Donald Trump’s administration continues an aggressive immigration crackdown.
More than 60,000 immigrants in the U.S. illegally, including some who do not have criminal records, were arrested within the first 100 days of Trump’s second term, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data.
Immigrant advocacy groups have complained and filed lawsuits against the administration in cases involving the deportation of U.S. citizens or people married to U.S. citizens, along with the mass deportations, McClatchy News reported.
How have Americans’ perceptions of discrimination changed?
A majority of Americans, 58%, said they think immigrants without legal status face “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of discrimination — a shift from four years ago when Black Americans were seen as the group experiencing the most discrimination, according to the poll.
Twenty-six percent of respondents said immigrants living illegally in the U.S. face a “moderate” amount of discrimination, while 15% said they face “only a little” or “none at all,” per the poll.
A plurality of respondents, 42%, said immigrants living in the U.S. with legal status face a lot of discrimination, the poll found.
Black people and Hispanic people were also seen by Americans as facing higher amounts of discrimination, with 45% and 44%, respectively, saying that was the case, according to the poll.
However, the number of respondents who said Black people face a lot of discrimination dropped significantly: 15 percentage points since a previous poll in April 2021, researchers said.
The number of people who said Asian Americans were experiencing a “great deal of” discrimination also considerably decreased from 45% in 2021 to 32% in 2025, according to the poll.
Perceptions of discrimination among Hispanic people and white people also saw a small drop since 2021, researchers said.
