{"id":52717,"date":"2026-02-12T03:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=52717"},"modified":"2026-02-07T10:56:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T17:56:37","slug":"how-many-stakes-worth-of-immigrants-are-there-in-the-church-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2026\/02\/how-many-stakes-worth-of-immigrants-are-there-in-the-church-in-the-us\/","title":{"rendered":"How Many Stakes Worth of Immigrants Are There in the Church in the US?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

If all of the immigrants in the Church in the US left, how many stakes would the US Church contract by?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

First of all, while <\/span>I am in general pro-immigration<\/span><\/a>, this isn\u2019t an argument for immigration, just an interesting thought experiment. If they weren\u2019t in the US they would be somewhere else, so their loss is our gain, and a member practicing in Guatemala is not worth any more or less than a member practicing in San Antonio.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Cooperative Election Study has a fairly large Latter-day Saint sample and asks respondents about their immigration status, so it\u2019s as good a source as any for this question. While Latter-day Saints <\/span>aren\u2019t as immigrant heavy as other faiths in the US<\/span><\/a> it\u2019s still not insignificant.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In terms of stakes, it\u2019s not bleeding edge but as of last June <\/span>there were 1,709 stakes<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the CES:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

4% of Latter-day Saints indicate \u201cI am an immigrant to the USA and a naturalized citizen.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

4% indicate \u201cI am an immigrant to the USA but not a citizen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

6 % indicate \u201cI was born in the USA but at least one of my parents is an immigrant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

13% indicate \u201cMy parents and I were born in the USA but at least one of my grandparents was an immigrant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So, our non-citizen immigrants comprise the equivalent of 68 stakes, as do our citizen-immigrants, for a total of 136 stakes worth of immigrants overall. \u00a0So if we were to remove all of the immigrants in the US Church it would be roughly equivalent to getting rid of the entire Church in Arizona or California<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For 2nd generation Americans it\u2019s 103 stakes, and for third generation Americans it\u2019s 222 stakes. So if we remove all members with at least one foreign-born grandparent that’s equivalent to removing 70% of the Utah Church, or three Idahos.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If all of the immigrants in the Church in the US left, how many stakes would the US Church contract by?\u00a0 First of all, while I am in general pro-immigration, this isn\u2019t an argument for immigration, just an interesting thought experiment. If they weren\u2019t in the US they would be somewhere else, so their loss is our gain, and a member practicing in Guatemala is not worth any more or less than a member practicing in San Antonio.\u00a0 The Cooperative Election Study has a fairly large Latter-day Saint sample and asks respondents about their immigration status, so it\u2019s as good a source as any for this question. While Latter-day Saints aren\u2019t as immigrant heavy as other faiths in the US it\u2019s still not insignificant.\u00a0 In terms of stakes, it\u2019s not bleeding edge but as of last June there were 1,709 stakes. According to the CES:\u00a0 4% of Latter-day Saints indicate \u201cI am an immigrant to the USA and a naturalized citizen.\u201d\u00a0 4% indicate \u201cI am an immigrant to the USA but not a citizen.\u201d 6 % indicate \u201cI was born in the USA but at least one of my parents is an immigrant.\u201d 13% indicate \u201cMy parents and I were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":52719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-sciences-and-economics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/unnamed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52717"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52726,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52717\/revisions\/52726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}