The percentage of native-born Americans and naturalized U.S. citizens in each income bracket is similar, but non-citizen immigrants are more likely to make less.

The Charlotte business owner, 40, came to America in 2000. He knows that massive deportations of illegal immigrants could greatly affect his daily operations, since he depends on both immigrant labor and immigrant clients.

The promise of America is as real to Manuel “Manolo” Betancur as when he came chasing it from Colombia in 2000 with $900 in his pocket. To hang on to it, however, the bakery and coffee shop owner in Charlotte has learned he must be nimble about seizing opportunities.

“Too many immigrant-owned businesses are afraid to take the next step, or they don’t know how to take the next step,” he says early one morning at Las Delicias Bakery as he greets customers in Spanish and helps load a delivery van with fresh Mexican and Colombian breads, pastries and cakes.

Betancur, 40, who became a citizen in 2008, started the deliveries during the recession when the business was in decline, realizing that scores of Latino stores had sprouted in small towns of North Carolina and Virginia to serve a growing immigrant population hungry for familiar delicacies. Now his drivers, Miguel Angel Marín and Carolina Bejarano, roam as far north as Lynchburg, Va. Deliveries account for half of sales, which he says have grown to $1 million.

Betancur and his ex-wife, Zhenia Martínez, who came from Mexico, took over the bakery founded by her parents. Betancur and Martínez remain business partners and have two children born in the United States, ages 7 and 5.