Why, I’m sure this has nothing at all to do with illegal immigration

The Los Angeles Times is beaming with pride:

We’re No. 1. Again.

California led all states in auto thefts last year, and Los Angeles was the top city.

The L.A.-Long Beach-Anaheim metropolitan area saw a total of 57,247 cars stolen last year, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, almost twice as many as closest rival San Francisco’s 30,554 and more than double Houston’s 25,433 or New York-New Jersey’s 22,391.

And it wasn’t just the big cities where cars were stolen. On a per capita basis, California claimed eight of the top auto theft rankings.

Modesto took the No. 1 spot, with a rate of 756 vehicles stolen per 100,000 residents. Not far behind were Bakersfield, Salinas, the San Francisco-Oakland area — which held the top spot in 2014 — the Stockton-Lodi area, Merced, the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario area and the Vallejo-Fairfield area.

Not to put too fine a point on it, illegal immigration correlates directly with high rates of auto theft:

More than 71 percent of all recovered stolen cars in 2005 in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California were stolen by illegal aliens or by “transport coyotes,” those who bring in illegals across the Mexican border.

Curious that the Times forgot to mention that teensy, weensy little detail.

Hat tip: BadBlue Real-Time News.