This economic crisis — with its disproportionate impact on low-wage fields like restaurants, hotels and nail salons — could hasten the departures of working New Yorkers, especially immigrant New Yorkers. In many communities, more than half of immigrants have lost their main source of income as a result of the crisis, and only a shockingly small number of the city’s immigrants have benefited from the federal government’s cash relief efforts. In this op-ed for the New York Daily News, CUF Executive Director Jonathan Bowles urges the city to prevent an exodus and continue attracting new immigrants by creating a local Excluded Workers Fund and a displaced workers voucher program, opening up city parks for street vendors, and developing a multilingual marketing campaign that urges all New Yorkers to remain in New York.

You can read the op-ed here.

This op-ed builds on the Center's extensive research on immigrants and its recent work on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including Under Threat & Left Out: NYC’S Immigrants and the Coronavirus Crisis and a recent virtual policy forum series, “What NYC's Immigrant- and Minority-Owned Small Businesses Need Now."