Illegal alien curbs to affect labor

By Timothy Pratt

Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2004 | 11:13 a.m.

Fingerprints identifying certain foreign passengers at McCarran International Airport. Drone planes flying over Arizona ranches. Machines reading immigration documents like ATM cards.

Then there's also fewer immigrants to make beds, build houses, wash dishes.

These twin scenarios were laid out in a conference called "2010: Nevada and Latin America," held Tuesday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and organized by the Las Vegas World Affairs Council.

Some of the technologies mentioned are here and others will be tried out soon by the Homeland Security Department, according to P.T. Wright, executive director of Customs and Border Protection, US-VISIT program and keynote speaker at the event.

Those technologies will enable the federal government "to say this person came, this person left, this person stayed," Wright said.

But they may also create unintended consequences in urban areas such as Las Vegas that depend on an immigrant workforce in certain areas of the economy, he said.

"We're going to come to a point in which conflicts will be brought about when people who now are under the radar won't be able to come and go as they can now," Wright said.

Put simply, there will be fewer people entering or staying in the country illegally, which in the Las Vegas Valley means a reduction in the workforce that could have a serious impact on the economy and the valley's growth.

"It isn't just an issue of turning away people at the border," Wright said.

"The ripple effect is that in cities like Las Vegas -- where there are known to exist undocumented persons -- this will impact their role in the community," he said.

"The technology will put in place things that policy has yet to catch up with," Wright said.

Ronald Morse, chairman of the World Affairs Council's board of trustees and a former State Department official, said he thought the post-Sept. 11 policies being implemented by Homeland Security should be more on the radar screens of the valley's top industries.

"Either they're going to lose people or have to help them become legal," by pushing for changes in immigration law such as the so-called earned legalization policies that were considered by the Bush administration before the World Trade Center attacks, Morse said.

Van Heffner, president and CEO of the Nevada Hotel and Lodging Association and the Nevada Restaurant Association, said he is "very concerned" about the possible impacts of immigration and border enforcement on the workforce in Nevada. Members of the two associations employ about 180,000 Nevadans, he said.

"While we're careful to abide by all existing laws," he said, "we will be working with the administration and Congress to streamline immigration laws ... and be careful to make seamless changes between immigration, homeland security, tourism and a workforce base."

Bruce Bommarito, executive director of the Nevada Commission on Tourism, said he hadn't seen undocumented workers in large casinos on the Strip "because it's just not worth it," referring to the legal implications of employing illegal immigrants.

He said the hotel and casino industry "always needed more workers ... but legal workers."

But David Thronson, a UNLV immigration law professor who was at Tuesday's event, said "the ability to move forward and become a U.S. citizen has become more and more limited over time."

Peter Ashman, a Las Vegas immigration attorney and head of the local chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association who was also at the event, said the system does not make it easy to meet the demand for workers legally, with long waiting periods for those who qualify to become residents or citizens.

"We have a need for their labor and services," he said.

"Many people might say, 'Well then, they should do it legally.' But the problem is our legal system doesn't allow you to do it legally," Ashman said.

Wright sees the importance of these issues, but also is quick to point out that his department implements policy, it doesn't craft policy.

"We want to make it so legitimate tourism and trade quickly move through so you can separate out those who are illegal and would do harm," he said.

The implications of his agency's work are clear, however, even if they were laid out Tuesday to no more than an audience of 20 listeners.

"The border is much more than just a line," Wright said.

"What happens in Laredo ... impacts people much more than where they live."