"Do your research upfront, " said Ben Hartmere, a graduate of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School who works for business filing services company File ONE as vice president of business development.

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Anti-immigrant agitators will seize on this figure, worries Mr Kasarda, a professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School.

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"Immigrants have become so interwoven into the economic fabric of those cities, to loosen that fabric is going to weaken the city, " says John Kasarda, a professor at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School.

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