Figure 1 saying issue is *extremely important")
Only three-in-ten (31%) Latinos rate immigration as an “extremely important” issue facing the incoming Obama administration, placing it sixth on a list of seven policy priorities that respondents were asked to assess in a nationwide survey of 1,007 Latino adults conducted from December 3 to December 10, 2008 by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.
The top-rated issue among Latinos is the economy; 57% of Hispanics say it is an extremely important one for the new president to address. Education, health care, national security and the environment all also rate higher than immigration as a policy priority among Hispanics, while energy policy ranks lower.
Latinos, who make up 15% of the U.S. population, are by far the nation’s biggest immigrant group. According to Pew Hispanic Center tabulations of the 2006 American Community Survey, more than half (55%) of Latinos ages 18 and older are immigrants, and 47% of all immigrants ages 18 and older are Hispanic. Even at the apex of the congressional debate over immigration reform in 2007, however, the issue never rose to the top of Latinos’ priority list. Of six issues asked of Latinos in a 2007 Pew Hispanic Center survey, it ranked fifth. But back then, 38% of Hispanics judged immigration to be an extremely important issue—more than the 31% who say the same thing in the new survey.
Figure 1  | Hispanics' Priorities Figure for the New Administration  | saying issue is *extremely important")  | The economy  | 57  | Education  | 51  | Health care  | 45  | National security  | 43  | The environment  | 33  | Immigration  | 31  | Energy policy  | 20  | Note Responses of "Not too important, "Don't know" and Refused"  | not shown,  | Source Pew Hispanic Center 2008 Politics Omnibus 