For decades, these immigrant men have not seen their families they had left back in China.

During the same period, the income of immigrant Asian men in the same age category doubled to $39,900 from $19,800.

The typical vendor is a married immigrant man who is the sole provider for his family and has no health insurance, the study found.

But after coming to Long Island - many illegally - the women discovered that the people most eager to hire them were immigrant men.

More than 600 immigrant men and women are held here, many of whom are thieves or drug traffickers.

In fact, immigrant men and women seem more likely to enlist than their native-born peers.

"We need to understand why so many young immigrant men end up in jail and the young women flee into shelters," she said.

Last year, for example, the police in many states were asked to interview 5,000 young immigrant men from countries linked to terrorism.

The ring was discovered when a county clerk noticed that the same American woman had married nearly a dozen immigrant men.

But immigrant men, mostly Latino, have a cultural claim on the fields.