Around the country, workers stayed home and businesses closed Monday to honor the "Day without Immigrants".
The nationwide protest was organized to demonstrate what new-comers, legal and undocumented, contribute to the country's economy.
In New Hampshire, hundreds took part in the protests which included rallies in Manchester and Nasuha.
But businesses in much of the state have been largely unaffected by the boycott.
New Hampshire Public Radio's David Darman has more.
Census Bureau data probably best explains why businesses in New Hampshire were more or less unaffected by the national boycott.
The biggest immigrant population, Latin Americans, adds up to just 2 percent of the state's total.
Still many immigrants do work in the state.
And they can be found in the same industries that employ them around the country.
For example in the construction trade.
Deb MacGilvary is with Customized Structures in Claremont.
The company manufactures modular homes and has about 100 production employees.
She says last year the company hired a number of immigrants who commuted from Massachusetts.
what we did was we were having a difficult time hiring people because that's our busy time in the summer it picks up and we get really busy. obviously, construction people want to put their homes in when the weather is warm. and what we did is we hired 15 or 16 gentleman through a temp agency called lucky temps, and a mixture of hispanic cambodian and vietnamese.
Another modular home builder in the state has also hired immigrants.
Gary Dossett of New England Homes in Greenland says they've hired several immigrants over the years.
The latest employee came from Sudan.
And He says, all of them have fit in well with the other 70 employees.
you know they're work performance and reliability, they're a major factor. every employee here is somebody that's needed.....we're a small company, and we depend on everyone to come in, a team atmosphere and work together to get the job done.
There are two other industries where immigrants can typically be found.
One is the restaurant and hospitality industry.
The other is landscaping.
Doug Cole owns DS Cole Growers in Loudon.
His company is a wholesaler that ships plants and cuttings all over the world.
Cole says he's hired several immigrants over the years, including former Yugoslavians who were refugees a decade ago.
He says some of these immigrants have managed to learn English, but others have not done as well picking up the language.
when we talk about picking and packing orders where one person may guide another you know there's a few that are really good at it, but otherwise the ones that have the language barrier we'll really have to give them true hand labor type processes that its easy to do it day in and day out.
Despite the small number of immigrants living in New Hampshire, the Census Bureau says the population is growing.
In 2000, less than 2 percent of the state was Hispanic, and just over 1 percent was classified as Asian.
But the number of immigrants has been building.
In 2004, Hispanics had grown to more than 2 percent of the population.
And Asians had grown to more than 1 and a half percent.
