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

ECONOMIST: Among the very poor, the American Dream is alive and well

"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.

FORBES: Magazine Article