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Which state has the largest Latino population? Which is witnessing the biggest influx of Latino immigrants? The answers to these questions could be the deciding factor in the presidential election come November.

"The Hispanic population is growing; whites and Asians are not replacing themselves," says Jane Dye, the U.S. Census Bureau demographer who wrote the latest study on birth rates.

According to the National Council of La Raza, Arizona, California, Colorado and Florida have the largest Latino populations. And while those state's numbers continue to swell, North Carolina is the state with the fastest Latino growth rate, growing an astounding 393 percent between 1990 and 2000.

So what's fueling such exponential growth? High birth rates and, of course, immigration.

Consider this: The average woman in the United States produces 1.9 children. Broken out by ethnicity, the numbers are 1.7 children for Asian Americans, 1.8 children for whites, 2.0 children for Blacks and 2.3 children for Latinos. American Indians were not included in the report. The fertility rates are sufficient, combined with immigration, to keep the U.S. population growing.

"It's the Hispanic population that is keeping us above water in terms of growth, in terms of births," said William Frey, a demographer for The Brookings Institution, a center-left policy-research organization in Washington, D.C., in an article in The Miami Herald.

Immigration, on the other hand, is less easily tracked. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that one of every two people added to the nation's population between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007, was Latino. In addition, the bureau also estimates that by 2050, 30 percent of the U.S. population will be Latino.

"A momentum is built into this as a result of past immigration," Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, told The New York Times. "In the 1970s, '80s and '90s, there were more Hispanic immigrants than births. This decade, there are more births than immigrants. Almost regardless of what you assume about future immigration, the country will be more Hispanic and Asian."

States are now cracking down hard on undocumented workers. During the past year alone, there have been high-profile raids in companies in Iowa and Mississippi, including a raid on a chicken factory in Iowa that netted 300 arrests of undocumented workers. And last month, police seized more than 600 undocumented workers in an immigration raid in Mississippi.

Meanwhile, the Arizona appeals court recently upheld a ruling that made it illegal for business owners to "knowingly" employ undocumented workers. Click here to find out what the immigration laws are in your state.

But the fate of immigration depends on who takes office in November. Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama have vastly differing views of on immigration.

While McCain supports tightening the borders and sending undocumented immigrants "to the back of the line" for citizenship, he steers clear of the issue during campaign rallies and press events. Obama supports tightening the borders and sending undocumented immigrants "to the back of the line" for citizenship and addresses immigration at campaign rallies and press events.

For more information on how both candidates stand on immigration and other key issues, check out the October issue of DiversityInc.

Click here to visit DiversityInc's special coverage of Hispanic Heritage Month.

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