Greenville County's influx of immigrants is fertilizing cottage industries you may never have heard of and forcing everyone from judges to paramedics to adjust to disparate cultures.

New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show the number of Asians and multirace residents in Greenville County nearly doubled from 2000 to 2005, while the Hispanic population has jumped by 62 percent, to 23,064 overall.

In each of six Upstate counties, the Hispanic increase is 40 percent or more.

They still make up a small fraction of the total population and trail the national average, but the rapidly swelling numbers are enough to pose communication challenges in everyday life and for vital services such as health care.

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At stake is not just more people flooding government offices and emergency rooms but a growing number who have different ideas about what those services should look like.

Out of the county's estimated total population of 407,383 last year, the Hispanic portion was 6 percent, up from 4 percent in the 2000 Census. Statewide, the number of Hispanics grew from 95,076 in 2000 to 139,801 in 2005.

Although all segments of the county's population grew between 2000 and 2005, the white and black portions grew slowest, according to the estimates. Every minority segment grew as a percentage of the total population. Only whites decreased.

Greenville County Administrator Joe Kernell now has an assistant from El Salvador who aids with communicating with Spanish speakers.

The Sheriff's Office is looking for bilingual deputies -- of any language, said Master Deputy Michael Hildebrand. Other police agencies are, too, and reaching out to these newcomers.

Highway Patrol spokesman Sgt. R.K. Hughes said the patrol is using a $41,400 grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to talk about seat belts, child safety seats and the law. He said the presentations help calm the nerves of people who might confuse troopers with immigration agents.

"That," he said of immigration enforcement, "is not our job."

The city and county have changed basic services to meet the needs of these growing communities, both Kernell and Greenville City Manager Jim Bourey say, and they anticipate that will continue on a larger scale.

The new figures are estimates, not an actual count, and are based on the last official census taken in 2000, said state demographer Michael MacFarlane.

Each year, he said, number-crunchers take that baseline and adjust the population estimate based on factors including birth and death rates and migration.

Unlike the actual census, accurate figures for small population groups at the county level can be hard to calculate, MacFarlane said.

"If you measure the total population for the state, you're probably doing all right," he said, "but you start looking at Hispanics for McCormick County, and you're probably not doing very well."

Although it can be difficult to count groups of people who don't want to be seen, he said, the goal is to quantify all residents -- including illegal immigrants.

Bourey, who has served on a census advisory committee, said the issue for the city is dealing with not just more people but people of different cultures.

Both the city and county now offer translators in local courts and law enforcement, Bourey and Kernell said.

Some city staffers receive extra pay for serving as interpreters, Bourey said, and every staffer recently completed two rounds of diversity training.

The city of Greenville advertises for job openings in Spanish radio and newspapers.

The 13th Circuit Solicitor's Office is seeing more Hispanic defendants and victims, especially in the past two years, Deputy Solicitor Betty Strom said.

She said some of the prosecutors speak conversational Spanish and have taken courses at Greenville Tech.

Summary Court Judge Charles R. Garrett said his office has seen a rapid rise in Hispanic cases, predominantly traffic cases.

He said that created some translation problems, so he replaced two of his staff members with people who are certified to translate in the courtroom.

Garrett said it's vital to make sure Hispanic defendants and victims completely understand the law, what the court is saying and what their rights are.

"Not a day goes by," he said, that he doesn't deal with Spanish speakers who need translation.

Hildebrand said county sheriff's deputies may not know whether someone is legal or illegal because they're arresting and booking offenders based on the violation of a local law.

There is no county law barring illegal immigrants, he said.

Strom said prosecutors also make little distinction until there's a conviction. At that point, they notify immigration.

The increasing interest in immigration issues spilled into the Legislature this year and last, as lawmakers filed 14 bills or resolutions related to immigration. That's up from just four such bills filed in the previous session.

Only two passed: a bill allowing insurance companies to advertise in a foreign language but requiring that policies be printed in English, and a resolution by Sens. David Thomas of Greenville and Dick Elliott of North Myrtle Beach asking Gov. Mark Sanford to order that no illegal alien be eligible to receive assistance from the state Department of Social Services. Sanford's staff said the legislation was unnecessary.

None of the legislation proposed helping immigrants.

The legislative proposals were the most since 2001, when lawmakers nervous about terrorism filed 20 bills relating to immigration. Only a bill dealing with driver's licenses passed.

The number of face-to-face interpretation encounters provided at health departments around the state jumped between 2003 and 2005 from 6,765 to 17,240, said Andre Stanley, cultural competence coordinator for the state Department of Health and Environmental Control's Office of Minority Health.

Besides interpreters, the state also hires bilingual workers where possible and provides telephonic interpretation services, said Gardenia Ruff, director of the minority health office.

"For the last several years, we have noticed this increase in the Hispanic-Latino population," she said. "The biggest barrier to access to care seems to be cultural and linguistic.

Hospitals have felt the impact.

At Greenville Hospital System, the number of interpreters more than doubled over the past two years, said Carlos Sanchez, manager of interpretation services. In 2004, he said, there were 30 full- and part-time interpreters, 12 of them for Spanish-speaking patients. Today, he said, there are 75 interpreters, 33 of them for Spanish-speaking patients.

Bon Secours St. Francis Health System also has seen an increase in the past three years, said spokeswoman Lee Turza. And that has meant a number of changes, including signs in Spanish to tell patients about interpretation services, forms that are available in Spanish, and audio/visual units for the hearing-impaired that include Hispanic sign-language interpreters.

The military has a bilingual approach in the Upstate as well.

At the Army, public affairs specialist Leslie Ann Sully said recruiters put the word out using Spanish radio and job fairs.

"A lot of people aren't qualified," she said. "They don't necessarily have to be a citizen. But they have to be here legally."

Any immigrant can join the Army as long as they have a green card and can produce a high school diploma and a birth certificate. The documents have to be translated, he said.

Army Sgt. First Class Neftali Santiago, a Spanish-speaking recruiter based in Spartanburg, said he just signed up a Peruvian who worked for a duct cleaner.

"I really want to get the word out how the process works," he said.

Staff writers Tim Smith, Liv Osby, Julie Howle, E. Richard Walton, Jess Davis and Lorando Lockhart contributed to this report.