Which arguments for refugee admissions are most persuasive to publics in receiving states? Some refugee scholars and advocates insist that the way to maximize support for refugee admissions is to emphasize their instrumental economic benefit to receiving states. Others prefer arguments based in legal or moral obligations, arguing that economic arguments risk undermining support for the most vulnerable or needy refugees.

In this article, we assess whether and how economic, legal, and moral arguments affect Americans’ support for refugee admissions, and which types of refugees they prefer to admit. We report results from a nationally representative survey in the United States (N = 1,297), with an embedded survey experiment and conjoint decision task.

We find that the moral argument led to more support for refugee admissions, while the legal argument increased support only among non-Republicans, and the economic argument had no discernible impact. In the conjoint task, the economic argument increased preferences for economically productive potential refugees, but in a way that focused on lower-status occupations.

Our findings suggest that while the economic argument may not reduce support, other approaches are more likely to increase Americans’ support for refugees.