Mark Krikorian’s Center for Immigration Studies unveils a new report that is almost tailor-made for a debate question tonight:

A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies examines job growth in Texas. Gov. Rick Perry has pointed to increased employment in Texas during the current economic downturn as one of his main accomplishments. Analysis of the Current Population Survey (CPS) collected by the Census Bureau shows immigrants (legal and illegal) have been the primary beneficiaries of this growth since 2007, and not native-born workers. This is true even though the native-born accounted for the vast majority of growth in the working-age population (age 16 to 65) in Texas. The report is online here.

The report’s biggest finding is that among the jobs created in Texas since 2007, 81 percent were taken by newly arrived foreign workers (legal and illegal). Because that’s a pretty important distinction in the minds of most Americans — CIS and Mark envision an America with greatly reduced legal immigration – the more eye-opening numbers are from this figure:

Of newly arrived immigrants who took jobs in Texas since 2007, we estimated that 50 percent (113,000) were illegal immigrants. Thus about 40 percent of all the job growth in Texas since 2007 went to newly arrived illegal immigrants and 40 percent went to newly arrived legal immigrants.

More:

In terms of numbers, between the second quarter of 2007, right before the recession began, and the second quarter of 2011, total employment in Texas increased by 279,000. Of this, 225,000 jobs went to immigrants (legal and illegal) who arrived in the United States in 2007 or later. Of newly arrived immigrants who took a job in Texas, 93 percent were not U.S. citizens. Thus government data shows that more than three-fourths of job growth in Texas went to newly arrived non-citizens (legal and illegal).
The large share of job growth that went to immigrants is surprising because the native-born accounted for 69 percent of the growth in Texas’ working age population (16 to 65). Thus even though natives made up most of the growth in potential workers, most of the job growth went to immigrants. The share of the working-age natives holding a job in Texas declined significantly from 71 percent in 2007 to 67 percent in 2011. This decline is very similar to the decline for natives in the United States as a whole and is an indication that the situation for native-born workers in Texas is very similar to the overall situation in the country despite the state’s job growth.

The presence of a large number of illegal immigrants is not terribly surprising, considering Texas’s long border with Mexico. But if the CIS estimate is correct, should Rick Perry be bragging about a job creation record if 40 percent went to illegal immigrants?