Pro-immigration coalition launches six-figure ad buy in upstate cities

With immigration one of the key talking points in this year’s elections, the Ellis Island Initiative – a coalition of labor, business and advocacy groups focused on transforming migrant families' integration into New York’s communities – is launching a six-figure digital ad campaign in the state’s swing districts to promote the benefits of immigration.

Launched on streaming services last Friday for viewers in Binghamton, Syracuse and the Hudson Valley, the new ad presents a business-first argument for the virtues of immigration. “Our communities are ready to commit immigrants to open jobs and training so they can contribute to our economy because it helps all of us,” the narrator of the ad states. The spot also suggests that political gridlock is preventing a crucial labor source from being unlocked. 

Often, discourse around immigration in New York prioritizes public safety and the potential drain on local resources. It’s become a hot-button issue in suburban politics ever since New York City Mayor Eric Adams began bussing asylum-seekers to upstate cities.

County executives scrambled to respond after Adams announced that the city’s shelter system had become overwhelmed – partially as a result of Republican governors sending asylum-seekers to liberal cities as a political stunt – and began transporting some immigrants upstate. In response, several county executives declared a state of emergency and some even sued New York City to stop the transfers. Since then, a number of Republican candidates have claimed that criminals who have entered the country illegally are settling in New York City suburbs, risking the well-being of upstate communities.

Steve Choi, the former executive director of the New York Immigrant Coalition and founder of the Ellis Island Initiative, told City & State that he targeted upstate areas not only because of the political climate around immigration but because of their need for a workforce. He said that he is hoping to shift attention away from overheated political rhetoric and toward solutions. “We wanted to focus on these areas because the airways are dominated by some of this negative messaging,” Choi said. “So really looking at it from not a political and electoral perspective, but just from a practical perspective, we said, ‘Where are the places where we're seeing some of the overwhelming messaging that is anti-immigrant, and quite frankly, just sensationalizing the issue?’”

While no current Republican lawmakers have come out for the initiative, former Republican state Sen. John Ravitz, now executive vice president and COO of the Business Council of Westchester, has come out in favor of the initiative. “Immigrants are a key reason why Westchester’s economy is among the strongest in the state. With more than 200,000 immigrants calling Westchester home, they are the business owners, doctors, teachers and service workers that keep our county running,” Ravitz said in a statement. 

The Ellis Island Initiative hopes that by approaching the issue of immigration through an economic lens rather than a political one, they will be able to create something resembling change, even in the current climate. Recent meetings have drawn buy-in from lawmakers, but Choi said it goes beyond that.

“There's an appetite I’m hearing from folks who are not polarized,” Choi said, “who are speaking about this issue of immigration and the issue of recent arrivals not from a political perspective, but as ordinary folks on the ground, people who are the owners of construction companies, or who are running workforce development operations, or labor union leaders who, I think, are looking at this from a practical, nuts and bolts, dollars and cents perspective.”