New report is valuable to debate

There are about 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center. The number grows by about 500,000 each year.

The report, which can be viewed online at www.pewhispanic.org, deserves to be added to the debate about illegal immigration going on in Costa Mesa (and Southern California, the state and the nation) because it offers fairly hard facts ? as solid as estimates of populations and demographics can get ? to what is such an emotional issue.

The thorniest, most tangled part of those emotions is the racial, or racist, component. Supporters of Costa Mesa’s proposal to have city police check the immigration status of people arrested for serious crimes say they are targeting people who are breaking the law ? in this case immigration laws ? regardless of race or skin color. But, according to the Pew report, 78% of illegal immigrants (the report refers to them as “unauthorized migrants”) come from Mexico or other parts of Latin America, primarily Central America. Immigrants from Asia accounted for 13%; people from Canada and Europe made up 6% of the total; and those from Africa 3%.

The numbers support the argument that, intended or not, Costa Mesa’s plan targets Latinos. Simply saying race isn’t part of the issue is disingenuous.

The report also highlights facts ? mainly economic ones ? that make this issue so complicated. Illegal immigrants largely are employed in low-wage jobs: They are about three times as likely to be in agricultural or construction jobs as legal residents.

The report also shows that though illegal immigrants account for 4.9% of the workforce, they make up 24% of those in farming jobs; 17% in cleaning; 14% in construction; and 12% in food preparation.

Also, illegal immigrants make up 21% of workers in private households ? a statistic that probably could go by the term the “Zoe Baird factor.”

These numbers seem to support the idea that illegal workers are doing jobs that most of us would never want to do but that still need to get done for our economy to run.

The value and importance of those jobs, I think, are largely ignored when people argue about the cost and burden that illegal immigrants place on the U.S. educational system, among others. It’s difficult to put a number to them, and far easier to try to figure out how much it costs to educate an illegal immigrant.

Everyone who’s engaged in the debate about Costa Mesa’s proposal ? and the wider questions going on regarding the issue ? ought to take a look at this report.

CHECK THAT OUT

One of the consistently amazing things about covering the Newport-Mesa community is the amount of giving that goes on. We often report on donations in the millions or tens of millions of dollars.

It’s easy to get immune to big-dollar deals ? in the abstract. But this week, the community’s level of giving was made quite concrete to me.

I actually saw (and touched, although didn’t get to hold) the $4.5 million check made out to the Environmental Nature Center from the Harry and Grace Steele Foundation, which the Pilot reported on Tuesday.

A $4.5-million check. I don’t know about you, but that one definitely caught my attention.