Immigrant haters, you can breathe only slightly easier. There's probably one less Mexican on your block.

But seriously, a study finds that the foreign-born in Los Angeles have decreased to 39.4 percent of the population in 2008 from nearly 41 percent in 2000.

The city's foreign-born population in 2008 was 1.5 million, according to research by USC academics that will be presented Tuesday at the State of the City event at Cal State Los Angeles.

Looks like just when we need immigrants to blame for this crap economy, they stop coming.

The study also found that the immigrants who are in L.A. have laid down roots, with the number of foreign-born who stay 20 years or more making up 42.2 percent of the city's immigrant population — nearly tripe the share in 1990, according to Associated Press.

USC professor Dowell Myers says that means newer immigrants are accepted more with open arms and the kind of business, cultural and community infrastructure that can help them them thrive.

“They were surrounded by a bunch of novices,” Myers, the study's co-author, told AP. “Now they've got people with their feet on the ground in the same ethnic community who are presumably able to help them.”

Welcome to L.A. Now stay.

[AP]

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