CHAPEL HILL - Illegal immigration is a highly contentious campaign issue. In election jargon, it is called a "wedge issue." Among the electorate, it pits rights-oriented activists, who advocate granting amnesty to hard-working, unauthorized migrants on humanitarian grounds, against "law-and-order" activists, who favor wholesale deportation because the unauthorized immigrants entered the country illegally. Business-oriented activists fall somewhere in between these views; they contend that some form of official recognition is required because unauthorized workers fill pressing labor needs in the U.S. economy.

Elected officials and political aspirants fan the flames of the debate by proposing their own ideologically based solutions to illegal immigration.

The debate is long on political rhetoric and short on accurate information. It will remain a wedge issue until we objectively address misconceptions about the demographic composition, entry modes and economic impact of unauthorized immigrants on American society.

One widely held misconception is that people of Mexican descent who entered the United States illegally constitute an overwhelming majority of the unauthorized immigrant population. Little attention has been devoted to the fact that an estimated 40 percent of the nation's unauthorized immigrants are visa over-stayers.

Instead of crossing our border illegally, they entered the various U.S. gateways with official papers from the federal government. By refusing to leave when their visas expired, they became unauthorized immigrants. Failure to fully acknowledge the expired visa problem has resulted in an overemphasis on enhanced border security as the best policy remedy for illegal immigration.

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BUILDING A WALL AROUND THE COUNTRY WILL NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM of visa over-stayers, who probably are a far greater threat to homeland security than unauthorized Mexican immigrants. Because they tend to be more highly educated and come from more diverse backgrounds -- geographically, culturally, and skill-wise -- than unauthorized Mexican immigrants, it is much easier for visa violators to blend into mainstream society. Several of the 9/11 terrorists were granted temporary visas, and visa over-stayers have secured employment in sensitive areas of the economy.

Another prevailing misconception is that unauthorized immigrants -- those entering the United States illegally -- drain the economy, costing more in services than they contribute in taxes. To the limited extent that empirical evidence is marshaled to support this claim, proponents of this view focus on fiscal or budgetary impacts and ignore the broader economic contributions of unauthorized immigrants. To accurately estimate the economic impact of any group--native or immigrant -- costs and contributions to the local economy must be assessed simultaneously.

Costs are usually derived from an analysis of government expenditures for services; K-12 education, health care and corrections are typically considered in immigrant impact studies with each proportionately allocated based on relative population size. Contribution estimates can be derived from analyzing the group's buying power. Typically, an input-output model can trace the money spent by the group through sectors of the economy.

We used this approach to estimate Hispanics' economic impact on North Carolina. Our study revealed that Hispanics contributed $9.2 billion to the state's economy through their purchases and taxes -- $15,130 per Hispanic resident -- in 2004. Hispanics' cost to the state budget for health care, education and corrections was $817 million -- $1,359 per Hispanic resident. For every dollar invested in essential services, the state received $11 in revenue and taxes from Hispanics in 2004. Immigrant economic impact studies conducted in Arkansas and Arizona yielded similar results.

As the U.S. native-born population continues to age, our nation will increasingly rely on immigrants to fuel future economic growth and development. In comparison to the native born, the immigrant population is younger and a higher percentage is prime working age.

However, the immigrant population is not as well-educated as the native-born population. And partly as a function of lower education levels, household and per capita incomes are much lower and poverty rates are much higher among immigrants than natives.

Given immigrants' current contributions to the economy, it is in our nation's best interest to embrace unauthorized immigrants who have otherwise played by the rules of American society and to invest in their education and poverty alleviation. We will need their skills, talents and entrepreneurial drive to remain globally competitive in the years ahead.

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