The LA Times refutes a list of "facts" about illegal immigrants that is making the rounds of blogs. The piece does not identify the blogs, but I'm assuming they are right-wing blogs.
http://opinion.latimes.com/immigration/2006/05/according_to_th.htmlAccording to the search service Technorati,
least 130 weblogs have recently posted 10 "facts" about immigration, allegedly coming from the L.A. Times. Readers' Representative Jamie Gold has pointed out, this list, which is being forwarded around the world at lightning speed, is a hoax.
We combed our archives to see whether the paper has indeed written anything like these facts, and found just one Op-ed column — by leading anti-immigration figure Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Col.) — that comes close to stating what the e-mail hoax claims. Meanwhile, we've tried to assess the veracity of the various statistics from online sources as well as representatives of federal, state, county, and city officials. We'll continue to post more details as we receive them. Here are the results:
"Fact" 1: 40% of all workers in L.A. County (L.A. County has 10 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This was because they are predominantly illegal immigrants, working without a green card.
LAT citations: None.
Factual basis: The Economic Roundtable, a research outfit affiliated with the Los Angeles County government, concluded in a December 2005 report
that the low-end estimate for LA County workers working for cash is 322,400 and the high end is 972,500 in 2000. From this, the Economic Roundtable paper extrapolates a mid-range 2004 estimate of 679,000, or 15% of the workforce. (Note that the total workforce of Los Angeles County is about 4.5 million, while the total population is closer to 10 million.)
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