Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight a report just released by the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group, regarding the contributions of immigrant in the 25 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S.

The report makes official what we’ve known all along: Immigration and economic growth go hand-in-hand. That’s right – immigrants boost economic productivity and create jobs.

As documented by the Fiscal Policy Institute, immigration has, in fact, been a vital force in the American economy. Even in tough times, immigrants boost or replenish the labor pool and inject entrepreneurial energy that opens businesses and creates jobs.

Clearly, the larger the number of immigrants, the greater the economic activity. But the reverse is also true. Shutting the borders and throwing out those who have built productive lives here would do untold damage to the country. Maintaining the United States as an immigrant-friendly nation is essential to our economic health.

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  • September 27, 2009.  New Islanders. By Lawrence C. Levy, Long Island Pulse.

The plight of these victimized visitors is a small part of the bigger immigrant story. A study by the Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI), based in Albany, showed that low wage day laborers comprise a fractional part of the growing Latino community, which itself is only the foam on a wave of increasingly affluent newcomers. A broad spectrum of immigrants—including those from India, Korea, China, Haiti, Africa, Iran and many other lands—are transforming America’s oldest major suburb. And it’s not accurate to say they are making merely a positive impact throughout Nassau and Suffolk. They have become the key to our region’s social and economic survival.