Do refugees contribute to a community's vitality, or are they a drain on a community's safety net resources? Until now there was no comprehensive effort by which to judge the impact of immigrants on Upstate New York, but now there is: Immigration: Key to the Future — The Benefits of Resettlement to Upstate New York examines how refugees contribute to and even rejuvenate their communities by offsetting demographic and economic decline through paying taxes, rebuilding housing stock, opening new businesses, and taking unfilled jobs.

Published by the New York State Bar Association, this book is the result of the combined efforts of the Rockefeller Institute of the State University of New York and the Government Law Center at Albany Law School, which invited 30 authorities to explore the issue. Drawn from academia, the business community, and service organizations, and largely using demographic and statistical analysis, the contributors put forward strategies for successful resettlement of refugees.

Immigration: Key to the Future stands as a major statement on the contributions made by refugees to their adopted communities in the United States. It demolishes old myths and replaces them with an array of facts that are compelling, persuasive, and overwhelmingly positive.