North Carolina's employers are enthusiastic beneficiaries of the newcomers' willingness to work. The influx carries costs, too, for taxpayers and blue-collar workers.

School budgets are feeling the pressure of educating students who are often poor and have little if any command of English. Critics wonder whether the spending is justified.

Small-town ways can seem changeless, and many natives like it that way. But some rural areas in North Carolina are having to adapt in a hurry to a wave of newcomers with a new language, new customs and new expectations. Case in point: Warsaw.

In a report in January on the economic impact of Hispanic immigration in North Carolina, researchers at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at UNC-Chapel Hill estimated the state's 2004 cost for health services provided to all Hispanics, legal or otherwise, at $299 million.

In North Carolina, where the illegal immigrant population is climbing toward a half-million, businesses are tailoring their products and tweaking their policies to reach the newcomers.

About 30 religious leaders and supporters added their voices to a rising chorus of North Carolina residents who are countering the call for a crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Angela Guerrero never expected to be in the predicament she is in -- her husband of five years banned from this country for at least a decade, her family torn between two countries and a tangle of immigration issues to unsnarl.

The slow economy and increased enforcement are the main causes of the decrease, researchers say.

A Raleigh man admits sending death threats to Hispanic and Islamic advocacy groups.

John McCain has supported legislation that would enable children of illegal immigrants to attend college, says the campaign of his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama.