In this first-of-its-kind report, the Center for an Urban Future and the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy explore the conditions and policy responses to low-income working families in the Empire State.

Report File: 

CUF_Between_Hope_and_Hard_Times.pdf

This survey of Central New York businesses finds that 40 percent employ workers with limited English proficiency. As immigrants comprise a rising share of the population and workforce throughout the region, upgrading their language skills will be key for local businesses and the area’s future economic growth.

Report File: 

CUF_Central_Nwe_Yorks_New_Workforce.pdf

Before the onset of the Great Recession, immigrant labor was cited as a boon to the US economy. Since the economic downturn in 2008 and the rise in US unemployment, some analysts and politicians have turned on that immigrant workforce and their employers, arguing that deporting eight million undocumented immigrant workers would create eight million new jobs for the native-born.

Report File: 

Kaye_-_Deeper_into_the_Shadows_020911.pdf

There is much confusion about the term "sanctuary city." The term is often used derisively by immigration opponents to blast what are best described as community policing policies. Critics claim that these cities and states provide "sanctuary" to undocumented immigrants, but research shows that the opposite is true.

Report File: 

Community_Policing_Policies_Protect_American_042611_update.pdf

The 2000 US Census found that immigrants, while accounting for 12 percent of the population, made up nearly half of the all scientists and engineers with doctorate degrees. Nearly 70 percent of the men and women who entered the fields of science and engineering from 1995 to 2006 were immigrants. Yet, the connection between immigration and the development and commercialization of alternative energy technology is rarely discussed.

Report File: 

Richard_Hermans_Green_Economy_062310.pdf