Hearing Examines Immigrants’ Contributions to the Economy

By Donna Lamb

Recently, the City Council Committee on Immigration held an oversight hearing on immigrants’ contributions to the economy. As Council Member Kendall Stewart (right), chair of the committee, explained, they were inspired to hold the hearing because during difficult economic times like these, immigrants are often blamed for the nation’s economic woes. There are misconceptions that immigrants take away jobs from US-born workers and that all undocumented immigrants are a financial burden on taxpayers. "This negative response to the immigrant population hurts any fair evaluation of the situation and hinders the attempt to find solutions to people’s concerns," Stewart said.

While many immigrant advocates provided valuable testimony at the hearing, Council Member John Liu (left), the first Asian American to be elected to the New York City Council, spoke very powerfully as well.

He told his colleagues that while it’s very easy to come up with a number on how much immigrants supposedly cost taxpayers, what is never, ever factored in is the specific, extreme subsidy that each and every New Yorker – and Americans in general – get from immigrants. "We can talk about immigrant contributions in a general way until we’re blue in the face, but people still won't get it," Liu declared. "We have to point out how much they themselves personally are subsidized by immigrant labor. We should do a ‘Day in the Life of the Average

New Yorker’ to show how much money each individual saves every day, thanks to new Americans," he continued. "When they order take-out, get their house cleaned, have their lawn manicured, or take car service, they're saving money every single time. We need to be very specific in order to bring home the message that our economy is simply unsustainable without immigrants, whether they have the right papers or not."

Karen Kaminsky (right), director of communications and development for the New York Immigration Coalition, gave an example of this unsustainability as it played out in Riverside, New Jersey. The city passed an ordinance that would punish employers who hired or landlords who rented to undocumented immigrants. The result was, hundreds of immigrants left town and the local economy dried up. Riverside ultimately rescinded the ordinance after realizing that all those immigrants, instead of being a problem, were actually crucial to the town's economic vitality.

Another issue that received much attention at the hearing was the problem of animosity towards new immigrants by native-born people who are struggling financially themselves due to the failure of this country’s educational system, government cutbacks in worker training, etc. Two advocates who gave joint testimony on this subject were Ken Cohen, (left) regional director for the NAACP, and Chris Chung (below right), program associate from YKASEC, a Korean American community-based organization.

Cohen said that the NAACP is well aware that the African American community doesn’t always get along with its new brothers and sisters, even though they often stand together whenever their rights are challenged. "But we cannot continue to hate each other," he stated. "We need to put aside our dislikes and, even when it’s hard, discuss these things out in the open. For us to be successful as people of color, we must have these discussion so our communities can stop living in fear of each other."

Chris Chung pointed out that all too often, tensions between African Americans and immigrants have been exploited to divide them when there are common issues facing both communities that need to be addressed. He emphasized that the struggle for immigrant rights should not be taken on by immigrants alone but must be shared with concerned communities at large because issues like housing, education and health are not immigrant-specific issues; they are civil rights issues. "For that reason, we are very happy to be partnering with the nation's oldest civil rights organization, the NAACP," he said. They are working together to create an environment of open dialogue between African Americans and immigrants by hosting workshops and group discussions, preparing written materials to distribute, and taking advantage of media outlets to spread the word.

Among the many others giving testimony were Midori Hills from the CUNY Citizenship & Immigration Project, Jacob Faber from the Center for Social Inclusion, Rabbi Feinberg from the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, along with David Dyssegaard Kallick from the Fiscal Policy Institute. He presented information from their report entitled, "Working for a Better Life: A Profile of Immigrants in the New York State Economy," which forms an important part of The Truth About Immigrants campaign, initiated by the New York Immigration Coalition with the goal of educating the public about the positive impact of immigration on the economy.