By MICHAEL HILL
Associated Press

ALBANY (AP) - One in five college professors and more than a third of the doctors in Upstate New York are immigrants, according to a study that tallied the economic contributions of foreign-born workers and challenges the stereotype of low-paid immigrants.

The report, released Monday by the Fiscal Policy Institute, said that immigrants contributed $229 billion last year to New York state's gross domestic product - or 22 percent of total output. While almost three-quarters of the state's 4 million immigrants live in New York City, researchers said their contributions are crucial to the economic success of the entire state.

Researchers with the labor-backed think tank said they wanted to add perspective to the immigration issue, which boiled over in New York recently when Gov. Eliot Spitzer proposed issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants as a way to coax them "out of the shadows." He dropped the idea this month amid overwhelming public disapproval and constant political attacks.

"We ought to be careful as we address some of the problem areas about immigrants, that we don't do it in a way that poisons the atmosphere for the very broad immigration that is incredibly important to the New York economy," said David Dyssegaard Kallick, the report's principal author.

Researchers looking at both legal and illegal immigrants found that their contribution of 22 percent of the state's economic output roughly equals their representation in the state population, 21 percent. The study found immigrants working as cabbies, maids and cooks, but also thousands of lawyers, financial managers and computer programmers.

Immigrants make the biggest impact in New York City, where they are responsible for much of the population growth over the past decade. More than one in three New York City residents was born in another country. Another 740,000 immigrants live on Long Island and the three suburban counties immediately to the north of the city: Westchester, Rockland and Putnam.

In Upstate New York, immigrants make up a smaller share of the population - 5 percent - but tend to do about as well economically as native-born families, according to the report.

Immigrants in upstate areas make up an especially large proportion of scientists (41 percent), physicians and surgeons (35 percent), computer software engineers (20 percent) and college and university professors (20 percent).

Kallick noted that immigrants are filling jobs in some of the areas, like health and education, that experts say are key to economic growth in Upstate New York.

Immigrants are well-represented in lower-paying jobs as well. Researchers said that 80 percent of seasonal farm workers are immigrants, not all of them documented.

Tompkins County, home to Cornell University, led upstate areas with a 10.3 percent immigrant population in 2005, followed closely by Orange (10.3) and Dutchess (10.1) counties.

The report said that most immigrants in New York speak English and about a quarter are white, originating from countries such as Russia, Poland, Israel and Yugoslavia.