As the Trump administration seeks to remake the immigration system and deports tens of thousands of people, many immigrants are more scared about living in the United States, and yet their resolve to remain here is largely unchanged.

A new national survey of immigrants in the country — both documented and undocumented, and varying widely in how and when they arrived — found that about half of all immigrants say they feel less safe since President Trump took office.

The KFF/New York Times 2025 Survey of Immigrants was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at KFF. The survey was conducted August 28 – October 20, 2025, online, by telephone, and by mail among a nationally representative sample of 1,805 immigrants, defined as adults living in the U.S. who were born outside the U.S. Respondents had the option to complete the survey in one of six languages: English (n=1,310), Spanish (n=431), Chinese (n=38), Korean (n=21), and Vietnamese (n=5), and Haitian-Creole.

Respondents were reached through one of five sampling modes: an address-based sample, a random digit dial telephone (RDD) sample of prepaid (pay-as-you-go) cell phone numbers, a callback sample of telephone numbers that were previously selected for an RDD survey, the SSRS Opinion Panel, and the SSRS/KFF Immigrants Panel.

Sampling, data collection, weighting, and tabulation were managed by SSRS in collaboration with public opinion researchers at KFF.