Labor Day Musings: Are Illegals Still Doing Work Floridians Won't?

As Florida's unemployment rate remains stuck in double digits, attention is turning toward the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in the work force.

The latest Census data show 525,000 undocumented workers in Florida last year -- or 5.8 percent of the working labor pool. The national average is 5.1 percent.

Immigration groups have long maintained that migrant workers do jobs that American citizens won't. But the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that supports tougher border controls, finds that shibboleth is increasingly outdated as jobs get scarcer.

CIS recently linked high unemployment rates among U.S.-born minorities aged 18-24 to lower jobless rates among immigrants of comparable age and educational backgrounds.

In any event, the Census found that the number of illegals in Florida nearly doubled from 2000 to 2008 -- from 575,000 to 1.05 million today.

See a state-by-state breakdown here.