New consul for Mexico vows to help oppressed

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Thursday, Feb. 3, 2005 | 9:45 a.m.

Mariano Lemus Gas, the new consul for Mexico in Las Vegas, said Wednesday he will be seeking new ways to help the more vulnerable sectors of the Las Vegas Valley's Mexican population, including the homeless, day laborers and victims of domestic violence.

Lemus Gas, who officially starts work at the 2-year-old consulate Monday, said his office had a budget of about $60,000 last year for the protection of Mexicans in the local community, regardless of their legal immigration status.

Alternate Consul Euclides Del Moral Arbona said that money was spent mostly by evaluating petitions at the downtown offices of the consulate on a case-by-case basis.

But Lemus Gas said he wants to "build bridges" with leaders in the private and public sector who work with the more vulnerable among the valley's estimated 300,000 Mexicans.

"We have an obligation to seek them out and see how we can help them," he said.

Undocumented Mexican and Central American men were perhaps the largest group overlooked in a recent week-long effort led by Las Vegas officials to help about 200 homeless people get out from under a downtown bridge and into housing.

Several Mexican men in the homeless camp said there were from 30 to 40 others without papers who slept under the bridge and sought day labor at Bonanza Road and Rancho Drive.

David Riggleman, Las Vegas spokesman, said "no one with immigration issues came forward." Neither the city nor Clark County approached the Mexican Consulate about the issue.

Lemus Gas said that if he had been in office at the time, his staff would have gone to the site to see what sort of assistance it could provide. He also said he will seek out local officials to discuss the issue.

Similarly, day laborers were in the news recently as the Clark County Commission considered the introduction of an ordinance making it illegal for would-be employers to stop in traffic and pick up laborers -- many of whom are undocumented immigrants.

Lemus Gas said the consulate might send staff to commission meetings to observe the process and would seek out people involved in the issue to see if there is a compromise short of passing an ordinance.

"If there's demand for their labor ... maybe there's a place employers can hire them that would be agreeable to all," he said.

Tony Sanchez, immediate past president of the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce and a member of the organization's government affairs committee, said the goals expressed by the new consul show "the evolution of the recognition of the role that recent immigrants play in Southern Nevada."

The new consul, who has spent 30 years as a foreign diplomat, said he would also be concentrating on the more traditional roles of the consulate, which became the first full-time diplomatic presence in Southern Nevada when its doors opened in February 2002.

Those roles include serving the public on a day-to-day basis, particularly in offering the consular identification card that Mexican consulates have issued to Mexicans in the United States increasingly in recent years. The cards serve as the identification necessary for obtaining services such as bank accounts.

As well, he said his administration, which could last up to three years, would seek to encourage foreign investment and tourism in Mexico.

Finally, he said his office and the 45 Mexican Consulates nationwide would be seeking to convince their compatriots -- particularly those who are citizens and eligible to vote -- that immigration reform in the current administration may be less than the "all or nothing" approach that was discussed prior to Sept. 11, 2001.

"We would like to see any of the initiatives prosper that allow Mexicans to work here without being persecuted," the new consul said.