At both the federal and state levels, the policy and rhetorical battle on immigration is, in the words of one North Carolina member of Congress, reaching “critical mass” as it pits those who support strict enforcement of current laws against those who advocate sweeping immigration-law reform.
North Carolina had the fastest growing Hispanic population of any state in the nation during the 1990s, growing from 76,726 in 1990 to 378,963 in 2000. North Carolina ranks ninth in the country with California in the lead with almost three million. The entire country was estimated to have over eleven million undocumented immigrants in 2006. This staggering influx of workers has numerous implications for low to middle class American citizens, who loose wages, or are forced out of work through the competition that this massive number of immigrants poses. It is estimated that 1,880,000 American workers are displaced from their jobs every year because of immigration.
Illegal immigration, primarily from Mexico, is responsible for the majority of that growth. The Washington D.C.-based Pew Hispanic Center has estimated that 300,000 people — roughly 65 percent of North Carolina’s Latino population — are illegal immigrants, based on the Census Bureau’s latest population estimates. No major Hispanic advocacy group has disputed Pew’s calculations.(more)
