Gallup: Less than half of Americans OK with treatment of Arabs, immigrants

WASHINGTON, July 29 (UPI) -- Less than half of U.S. adults are satisfied with the way Arabs and immigrants are treated in the country, a new Gallup poll shows.

The poll of more than 3,200 adults found 45 percent of Americans are "very/somewhat satisfied" with the way Arabs are treated, a four-point drop from a similar survey in 2015. The survey showed 43 percent are satisfied with the way immigrants are treated, down from 44 percent last year.

Gallup's 2016 Minority Rights and Relations poll also found Americans' perceptions about the treatment of Hispanics dropped to 54 percent, from 58 percent in 2015. For Asians, the perception of treatment dropped to 75 percent from 77 percent last year.

The perception of the treatment of blacks rose to 51 percent from 49 percent last year, the survey found. The survey was conducted before the police-related shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, along with the shootings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge in July, Gallup said.

"Blacks still have diminished satisfaction with how they believe blacks are treated in the U.S., while satisfaction with the treatment of blacks among other races and ethnicities, and among national adults overall, has modestly increased," Gallup author Art Swift said.

For the poll, Gallup asked respondents how they feel about the way six groups of people in the United States -- Asians, women, Hispanics, blacks, Arabs and immigrants -- are treated overall in the country. Respondents were asked to reply, "very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied."

Swift said the overall 2016 figures remain relatively stable from the similar survey in 2015. The poll found "not much change" in how Americans perceive immigrants are treated in the past year since the issue of race and ethnicity took forefront in the presidential campaign. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country and for a wall on the southern border to keep Mexicans and others from entering the country illegally.

"While a sizable number of Arabs in the U.S. are Muslims, many are Christians, and there has only been modest change in the satisfaction with the treatment of Arabs in the past year. Still, immigrants and Arabs are viewed as getting worse treatment than other key minority groups," Swift said.

Gallup said it did not have a sufficient sample of Arabs to report on how they feel Arabs are treated in the United States.

The poll was conducted from June 7 through July 1, 2016, with a random sample of 3,270 adults in the United States. The margin of sampling error for the total sample is 3 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level. The sampling error differs for various ethnic groups.