In a U.S. survey conducted this spring by Pew Research Center, half of all foreign-born whites said that the growing number of newcomers “threatens” traditional American customs and values, rather than “strengthens” them. Astoundingly, there was no significant difference in responses to this question among white immigrants, their children or their grandchildren.

White respondents whose most recent immigrant ancestors were their great-grandparents (or even earlier forebears) were only slightly more likely to view new immigrants as threatening to U.S. society (59 percent of fourth-generation whites said this, compared with 50 percent of others).

Last year the PRRI asked an alternate version of this same survey question. In that survey, though, pollsters also happened to ask Hispanic respondents about their place of birth and how long they’d been in the United States if they’d been born abroad. At my request, the institute cross-tabulated the results of these two questions.

The findings? Immigrants were generally more pro-immigrant than non-immigrants were, unsurprisingly. But within the subset of foreign-born Hispanics, there was a sharp gradient in views of newcomers, depending on how long ago respondents had arrived in the United States.