Look at the smoke and mirrors tricks being pulled here. Illegal and LEGAL immigrants are being lumped in together in the claim for benefit to the economy and society. Everyone at ALIPAC acknowldges the contributions of LEGAL immigrants and we all agree that LEGAL immigrants are a positive influence on America. Furthermore, we support and congratulate LEGAL immigrants. It's the ILLEGAL immigrants that are the problem and no matter how hard the socio-ethnocentric advocacy groups try to dress it up, we do not accept, nor believe, nor see actual empiracle data that says ILLEGAL immigrants are a postitive contributor to America in all facets of our society, culture and economy.


An economic engine in immigration
Study by New York state labor, immigrant groups emphasizes contributions by those born elsewhere

By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau
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First published: Monday, November 26, 2007

More than one in five New Yorkers are immigrants, and their economic activity accounts for more than 22 percent of the money pumped into the state's economy, according to a report out today by a labor-backed think tank and a pro-immigration coalition.

Moreover, the study says, most immigrants eventually blend into the larger society, learning English, buying homes and raising their kids as native-born Americans.

"Immigrants gradually become part of our communities," concluded the survey, titled "Working for a Better Life: A Profile of Immigrants in the New York State Economy," by the Fiscal Policy Institute and The New York Immigration Coalition.

The survey comes a month after Gov. Eliot Spitzer, in the face of scathing public opposition, backed off his plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

But the survey's main author, Fiscal Policy Institute Senior Fellow David Dyssegaard Kallick, said that's not what prompted the report, which was started before the license battle erupted.

"This was a major report that we'd been working on all year," said Dyssegaard Kallick, who added it was partially motivated by the wave of anti-immigration protests in major cities during the summer of 2006.

"This issue was really heating up and there was this national discussion about immigration reform," he said. "We felt the need for coherent analysis."

Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of The New York Immigration Coalition, said the findings underscore the argument for helping illegal immigrants gain legal status.

"For us to maximize immigrant contributions to the economy, we must stop treating immigrants like criminals and terrorists," she said. "Instead, we need to change our immigration laws so that undocumented immigrants can come out of the shadows of the underground economy and future immigrant workers can immigrate legally to fill jobs that our economy requires."

The survey included both legal and illegal immigrants, with the latter category making up 16 percent of immigrants statewide.

Among the findings: Of the state's 4 million immigrants, 3 million live in New York City. Upstate, immigrants make up 5 percent of the population and frequently mirror the overall population.

And contrary to what may be a popular perceptions, immigrants inhabit more than the bottom rung of New York's economic ladder. That's especially true upstate, where immigrants are proportionately better-educated than their downstate counterparts. While tens of thousands of immigrants toil as dishwashers and home health aides in New York City, upstate immigrants make up more than one-third of the doctors in this region and one-fifth of the computer software engineers.

Additionally, one of every five upstate college and university teachers is an immigrant.

The survey notes that these fields -- health care, education and technology -- often are cited as potential upstate growth areas, so immigrants play a potentially outsize role.

And while it's long been known that immigrants can help revitalize urban neighborhoods, the lack of immigration appears to play a role in stagnation.

Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester, which the report notes are plagued by under-population and a brain drain, may be stalling not so much from outright population loss as from a lack of immigrants moving in.

"If you take immigration out of the picture, what we see is stagnation," said Dyssegaard Kallick.

Rick Karlin can be reached at 454-5758 or by e-mail at rkarlin@timesunion.com.
http://timesunion.com:80/AspStories/sto ... 11/26/2007