They clean the floors of swanky office towers downtown, pick wine grapes in Wenatchee and wash dishes in Belltown restaurants.
An estimated 230,000 illegal immigrants were living in Washington state last year — 35 percent more than three years earlier, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center. The total represents one of every 20 workers in the state.
Researchers at Pew Hispanic, a project of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., used the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey data as a basis for the report.
They found that nationwide, illegal immigrants numbered 11.2 million, virtually unchanged from 2009 and down from a peak 12 million in 2007. Many have attributed the slide to more immigration enforcement and a weaker economy...
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