A nation divided on immigration

Hispanic workers, both legal and illegal, are settling into the land of hogs and pickles, and residents of North Carolina's coastal plain - and the US Congress - are as divided as the rest of the nation on how to think about it.

It began with cucumber farmers here journeying to Texas to bring back bus loads of Hispanic workers to keep local pickle factories in business. At first, the workers returned to Mexico and other Central American countries at the end of the season. Then, five or so years ago, something changed "overnight," says odd-jobber Robert Monk of Warsaw: They stayed.

In towns like Warsaw, Calypso, Faison, and Mt. Olive, cucumber fields and chicken coops as long as football fields became a draw for more immigrants. They moved from shacks in the woods to trailer parks and worn-down ranch houses, where they parked new-looking old cars on the grass.

Business groups say they do jobs that whites and blacks long ago ceased to do. But Ralph Draughn, owner of the Super Clean Car Wash, feels cheated. Not only have American companies transferred many jobs south of the border, but hard-working Americans have to pony up tax dollars for public health clinics and new schools used by illegal immigrants, he says. "Soon, we'll all have to start swimming to Mexico, since that's where we've seen all the good jobs go, while the Mexicans take all the jobs here," says Mr. Draughn. His solution: Round up all illegal immigrants and deport them.

More than half of Americans apparently agree with him. Fifty-three percent say those who are in the US illegally should be required to go home, according to a poll released last week by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Forty percent say they should be given some kind of legal status to stay in the US. But in the same survey, nearly half of those who say illegal immigrants should leave also say that some could stay under a temporary work program.

"It's a complicated issue, and the public's views aren't consistent," says Carroll Doherty of the Pew Research Center.

Since the 1990s, the public's views of Latin American and Asian immigrants have become more positive, despite concerns over the drawbacks of immigration. Both groups are seen as hard-working and committed to family.

"The fault line here is education and income," she says. "People who are financially struggling - regardless of political party - are more likely to say that immigrants threaten traditional values." Sixteen percent of those Pew surveyed said they or a family member had lost a job to an immigrant worker.

Immigration legislation now before Congress is pulling much of this ambivalence into the open. In a historic vote as early as Thursday, senators take up a plan that includes opening a path to citizenship for many of the 12 million in the US illegally.

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