Immigration reform coalition halts efforts

Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2002 | 9:50 a.m.

A national coalition of business groups and immigration attorneys that gained national attention lobbying for eased immigration standards in the months before Sept. 11 has put its work on hold.

Nevada members of the Essential Workers Immigration Coalition say the once-vocal group has fallen silent for the foreseeable future, just five months after top officials of Mexico and the United States seemed close to reaching agreement on immigration reform.

"Everything's been put on hold as we wait and watch what's going on in the world," said John Kukulica, chairman of the Nevada Restaurant Association, a member of the coalition.

The restaurant association represents 700 of the state's 5,000 restaurants, including those at resorts such as Caesars Palace, Paris Las Vegas and Bellagio.

"Right now, we're just trying to get our industry back to where it was before this all happened," he said.

The coalition was formed two years ago to address what it said is a chronic shortage of unskilled workers in areas of the economy such as tourism and construction. It pushed to allow legalization of undocumented workers to fill millions of jobs that Americans avoid, becoming part of the debate generated by last summer's meetings between the Bush and Fox administrations.

The coalition pointed to a Bureau of Labor Statistics projection that said the nation would face a shortage of 6 million workers by 2008, most of them in such businesses as restaurants, retail, construction, manufacturing and hotels.

But though the group is now quieter, its members insist the issue of immigrant workers is not going away.

Bruce Bommarito, chairman of the Nevada Hotel and Lodging Association, said his organization is currently concerned with getting its member hotels back to near-full occupancy rates.

"After Sept. 11, the lay-offs in Las Vegas took the pressure off our historic need for unskilled workers," Bommarito said.

"But the time will come soon when we're back at full capacity, and we'll have the same needs, employment-wise, as before. Then we'll need to look at some kind of reform again, and this isn't in contradiction with security for our nation," he said.

The hotel and lodging association, also a member of the coalition, represents 80,000 of Nevada's 176,000 hotel rooms.

Together, the businesses represented by the restaurant and hotel associations employ 185,000 Nevadans.

In the weeks before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the coalition, which also includes the 7,500-member American Immigration Lawyers Association, lobbied for such changes as legalizing the millions of undocumented workers already in the United States and making temporary worker visas easier to obtain for future immigrants.

"We understand that the government is now putting its attention on other things," said John Gay, vice president for government affairs at the American Hotel and Lodging Association and one of the coalition's founding members.

"But one of our underpinnings is that we're looking at long-term demographics, not short-term economic trends. And we think the Bush administration knows this issue is still important," he said.

Both state and national members of the coalition said that the political atmosphere after Sept. 11 may affect the group's future efforts.

"We may have to tip-toe around the issue for awhile, since the whole issue of immigration is more sensitive now," Bommarito said.

The future for immigration reform may face greater political obstacles now that the country is on a high security alert, said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that opposes eased immigration standards.

"We think the essential workers coalition was always off base and just looking for the largest possible pool of workers, but with the declining economy and the political atmosphere regarding immigration, things may be harder for them in the near future," Mehlman said.

But the hotel association's Gay thinks public opinion is still with the coalition.

"Most Americans don't think that a Mexican landscaper is a terrorist. I think we'll see some kind of immigration reform involving North America, from Canada to Mexico," Gay said.

The coalition will have its first national meeting since Sept. 11 in the second week of January.

"This will be our first opportunity to take stock of where we are and where we're going," Gay said.

He also said that the attacks may help the coalition in the long run.

"On Sept. 10, you had business, labor and immigration advocates working to change the immigration system. And even anti-immigration forces agreed that the system wasn't working. But the American public didn't know or didn't care. Now they do."