Migrant exposure and anti-migrant sentiment: The case of the Venezuelan exodus

The global increase in refugee flows and anti-migrant politics has made it increasingly urgent to understand when and how migration translates into anti-migrant sentiment. We study the mass exodus of Venezuelans across Latin America, which coincided with an unprecedented worsening in migrant sentiment in the countries that received the most Venezuelans. However, we find no evidence that this decrease occurred in the regions within-country that received the most migrants. We do this using multiple migrant sentiment outcomes including survey measures and social media posts, multiple levels of geographic variation across seven Latin American countries, and an instrumental variable strategy. We find little evidence for heterogeneity along a range of characteristics related to labor market competition, public good scarcity, or crime. The results are consistent with anti-migrant sentiment being a national-level phenomenon, divorced from local experiences with migrants. •Anti-migrant sentiment worsened after the mass Venezuelan exodus across Latin America•This study tests if exposure to within-county in-migration drives these effects•It uses migrant sentiment outcomes from surveys and social media posts.•It uses geographic variation in seven Latin American countries using an IV strategy•It finds that regions that receive more migrants do not respond more negatively