Toebben was joined by Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., which released a study showing that tens of thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue could be lost if continued raids force businesses to flee the state.
The study analyzed three industries thought to employ high numbers of immigrant workers -- fashion, food processing and furniture manufacturing -- and found that about 10,000 businesses created nearly 500,000 direct and indirect jobs and produced $18.3 billion in wages in 2006. If 15% of those firms left the region would lose nearly 75,000 jobs, the report found.
"We can't afford any more of these raids," Kyser said, adding that recruiters from Washington state and elsewhere have begun aggressively courting businesses to relocate.
But Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said it was the agency's "sworn duty to enforce our nation's immigration and customs law and the agency is going to aggressively pursue that mandate."
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teresa.watanabe@latimes.com
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anna.gorman@latimes.com
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ari.bloomekatz@latimes.com
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Times staff writers Tony Barboza, Howard Blume, Jessica Garrison, Evelyn Larrubia, Jill Leovy, Rong-Gong Lin II, Robert Lopez, Sam Quinones and Joel Rubin contributed to this article.
