Monthly Archives: January 2018

January 30, 2018. This article discusses the economic impacts that the cut in refugee resettlement could have on the upstate city, Syracuse, New York. Refugees have helped reverse population decline, added to the labor force, opened businesses, revamped vacant property and contributed to local and state taxes. Refugees have higher labor force participation rate than U.S.-born (workers),” said Cyierra Roldan, a policy analyst at the Fiscal Policy Institute. “They are filling open jobs, adding workforce.” Roldan added that refugees are saving the homes of Syracuse by [...]

January 29, 2018. This article discusses the impacts of Trump administration's decision on a policy to replace the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the cut to legal immigration and the family reunification immigration policy, also known as "chain migration." The Trump administration wants to change to a skill-based immigration system. The article outlines the devastating effects that upstate cities such as Buffalo, and other rustbelt cities will endure. These include farmworker labor shortages for farms who use seasonal immigrant workers, population decline and a [...]

January 24, 2018. The Trump administration argues that "chain migration" is bad for the United States, and that immigrants should be admitted based upon their skills. This article looks into the administration's claim that "current immigration policy imposes as much as $300 billion annually in net fiscal costs on U.S. taxpayers," that was found in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report. Politifact found that although this finding is accurately cited from the the NAS report, the Trump administration left out details that [...]

January 22, 2018. In this column, the author, Andrew Atkins, describes the time that he received a card from a colleague, who is an immigrant from  Rawanda. This card thanked him for his contributions to the staff. The author highlights that his colleague, who fled he genocide in Rwanda, feels safe and welcomed in America and that he demonstrates acts of empathy, compassion and kindness regardless of the demeaning rhetoric about immigrants coming from the federal administration. The author goes on to state that President Trump [...]

January 9, 2018. This article is about immigrants who are recipients of Temporary Protective Status (TPS), many who are elderly, that have worked hard and paid their taxes and contributed to social security. The article goes on to discuss how Trump has ended TPS for El Salvador and these recipients face deportation. Honduras and Haiti are still under consideration. The author cites a study by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) that shows that deporting TPS recipients from Honduras, El Salvador and Haiti would have [...]

January 3, 2018. In Albany on Tuesday, advocates for the needy proposed a “recapture tax” in which the state would keep some of the federal tax breaks headed to corporations. The advocates said the recapture tax could help make up for expected federal cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and other programs proposed for later this year that would worsen the plight of the working poor in New York. Congressional leaders and President Donald Trump said they would consider cutting the entitlement programs in part [...]