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"At least there is one thing both sides agree on: Hispanic immigrants are leaving Prince William. Whether their departure has improved the county's quality of life or pushed its strained economy further downward is the new topic of contention driven largely by views of whether the presence of immigrants was a good thing in the first place.

"The illegal migrant population has dropped an estimated 11 percent through May after hitting a peak last August, based on census data used in a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Much of that decline is due to people who self-deported by slipping back across the border.

The drop began well before unemployment went up, which points to the real success story: Washington's wake-up call last summer to beef up enforcement, from plugging leaks in the border to cracking down on employers who hire illegal workers."

"Those numbers have increased percentage-wise tremendously," said Enrique Hubbard, the Mexican consul general in Dallas. "In fact, it's almost 100 percent more this year than it was the previous two years."

The yearly scramble by employers for temporary visas for foreign scientists and technology engineers started on Wednesday, with immigration authorities expecting fewer new petitions this year because of the recession and because of new restrictions on financial companies that received emergency federal aid.