Blame Congress, Not Immigrants, If America’s Taxes Don’t Pay for Our Expenses

December 25, 2018. Recently, WhiteHouse.gov put up a post on its web site claiming that immigration results in “$300 billion annually in net fiscal costs on U.S. taxpayers.”

As I said in talking with PolitiFact, this is just sophistry. The United States has been running a deficit for years. So, by definition, all Americans have a bigger net cost than contribution – 1st generation immigrants, 2nd generation … (read more)

January 18, 2018. In the current political context, a number of members of congress are thinking about immigration even more than they usually do. To inform the discussion, FPI occasionally provides information about the residents of different congressional districts. Here is a little bit of background on the 13^th Congressional District located in New York City, which includes upper Manhattan and a part of the Bronx.

There are 3.1 million immigrants living in New York City, and 280,000 in … (read more)

The Dream Act Would Boost New York’s Economy

December 20, 2017. On September 5, 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would revoke the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). This program provided immigrant youth who are currently undocumented and arrived in the United States before the age of 16, work authorization, protection from deportation and the sense of security of being able to live a life like everyone else in the place they call home.

It only took a … (read more)

Dream Act Would Boost NY Economy and Tax Revenues Revoking DACA Hurts Both

 

The Dream Act would allow immigrants in New York to contribute more fully to the state economy, boosting longterm state’s $1.5 trillion GDP by at least $1.8 billion a year, and increasing state and local tax revenues in New York by $62 million, according to a report released today by the Fiscal Policy Institute that draws on analyses from the Center for American Progress and … (read more)

November 20, 2017. On November 1, 2017, FPI’s Deputy Director and Director of the Immigration Research Initiative, David Dyssegaard Kallick, joined other experts in a panel discussion, “The Business of Immigration,” hosted by City & State New York. He joined the moderator Stuart Schulman, Professor of Management at Baruch College Zicklin School of Business, Lorelei Salas, Commissioner for the Department of Consumer Affairs, Hollis V. Pfitsch, Deputy Commissioner at the Law Enforcement Bureau, and Dara Adams, Industry Program Director at … (read more)

November 6, 2017.

Until recently, refugee resettlement was something the United States took on quietly and with a justified sense of pride. Even as immigration policy became a controversial issue, refugee resettlement was generally kept out of the fray.

More recently, refugee resettlement has become a focus of uneasy attention. With the refugee ban that was implemented by the Trump administration in the beginning of his term and the decision to cut resettlement numbers in half, it is more important … (read more)

September 13, 2017. On September 8, there was a panel that discussed the 2017 mayoral and City Council election that was organized by the Center for Community and Ethnic Media at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. FPI’s David Dyssegaard Kallick, Deputy Director and Director of Immigration Research, joined the host Errol Louis, Professor Christina Greer from Fordham University, Christian González-Rivera from the Center for an Urban Future, and Stephen Witt from Kings County Politics to discuss health and immigration … (read more)

August 2, 2017.

The Workers That Feed Our Families: Fighting for the Right to Organize

Crispin Hernandez is a farmworker who felt he and others he worked with were not getting a fair wage or decent working conditions. The solution, he thought, was to organize with other workers to be able to negotiate with their employers. When he started organizing, however, he was fired.

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), who is representing Crispin Hernandez, filed a lawsuit against … (read more)

Young Immigrants Pay $55 Million More in NY Taxes as a Result of DACA

July 5, 2017. In the midst of a flurry of restrictive actions against various categories of immigrants, the Trump administration announced last month that it would continue, at least for now, the policy that protects some undocumented immigrants from deportation if they arrived in the United States as children. The policy, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, allows immigrant youth who register and … (read more)

June 12, 2017. Many institutions in upstate New York cities and metro areas are wrestling with translation services, language access, and other ways to help integrate local residents who didn’t grow up speaking English. And, while the immigrant share of the population is not as big as in cities like New York or Los Angeles, the diversity of languages spoken can make for its own challenges.

An analysis of the 2015 American Community Survey 5-year data for Buffalo, Rochester and … (read more)