How L.A. kept out a million migrants - Los Angeles Times

“CONVENTIONAL wisdom holds that cities and metropolitan areas are powerless to deter immigrants from moving in. Evidence suggests otherwise. Between 1980 and 2000, the Los Angeles metropolitan area deflected nearly 1 million Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, to other U.S. cities.

During that 20-year interval, the immigrant population in the United States increased from 14 million to 31 million, but the percentage of those immigrants living in the city of Los Angeles declined from 6.8% to 4.9%, according to U.S. census data. That translates into 600,000 fewer immigrants in 2000 than would have resided here without the decrease. The same relative decline was evident in the five-county L.A. metropolitan area. The region’s share of the U.S. Mexican immigrant population in 1980 was 32%; 20 years later, it was only 17% ”” about 961,000 fewer Mexican immigrants living in L.A., Ventura, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties than otherwise would have. “

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