Leila Navidi

Nora Ramirez, far left, waits in the Mexican consulate in downtown Las Vegas. As more Mexicans have moved to the area, lines waiting for the consulate to open have become common. The consul says other tenants have complained to the building’s owner about “those Mexicans.”

By Timothy Pratt

Sun, Jan 13, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Mariano Lemus Gas, Mexico’s consul in Las Vegas, made a plea to the valley’s Hispanic community in a recent edition of El Mundo, a local Spanish-language weekly.

Six years after becoming the valley’s first consulate, his downtown office needs a new home. He hopes the community can help.

The decision is mostly a result of the continuous growth in the area’s Mexican community. Demand at the office has gone from about 100 documents daily to nearly 180 during the past three years alone, while the consulate’s staff has gone from 10 to 16 since opening day, said Johannes Jacome, alternate consul.

Since 2002, the valley’s Mexican population has increased from an estimated 274,000 to at least 360,000.

But the agency has faced more than a growth in demand. It has seen its own version of the xenophobia many Hispanics have withstood as immigration polarized public opinion in recent years, according to Lemus Gas.

Other tenants in the Bank of America building where the consulate occupies a ground-floor office, the consul said, have complained to the building’s owner about “those Mexicans.”

“They haven’t been very subtle with us,” the consul said. “They’ve told us that others have said, ‘We don’t want to see so many Mexicans outside at 6 a.m. every morning.’”

The subject came up when Lemus Gas approached the owner to inquire about expanding the consulate’s office space. The answer was yes, but on the condition the consul could ensure there would be nobody waiting in line outside.

Lemus Gas refused. He said in El Mundo that he thought the building’s owners targeted the consulate with “pure discrimination and racism, and I’ll say it openly.”

So began the search for a new place for the valley’s Mexicans or those of Mexican descent to seek everything from consular ID cards to help in sending cadavers home. The consulate’s lease expires in December 2009.

Jason Mattox, executive vice president of Berhinger Harvard, a company that advises the Dallas-based owner, said he had “heard some concern about the increased number of people waiting for the consul to open ... clogging up sidewalks and that kind of thing.”

He later sent a letter to the Sun in which he offered a different version of events, saying the two parties had reached a “satisfactory resolution” at the current site. Jacome said the proposal to remodel the existing downtown office referred to in the letter was still under discussion as of Friday.

Still, a recent visit to the downtown office made it seem that the decision to move had arrived none too soon.

Nearly all 40 seats in a small waiting area were taken. Several lines stretched to the door.

Beset with the frustration that hours in a government office produce, Maria Romero fumed about this visit and the one before that. Three years ago, she came for a consular ID, a card that banks across the nation have begun accepting in the past five years for new accounts. Romero was one of those in line at 6 a.m. on that day. She didn’t get out of the office until 2 p.m.

This time she had shown up at 7 a.m., seeking a passport to comply with a new federal requirement for all persons traveling by air to Mexico. She said her trip was an emergency, so that a cousin who is a doctor in Guadalajara could operate on her. Because she lacks medical insurance, the operation would be impossible here, Romero said.

But there was no way to shoot to the front of the line, so that day, she still was waiting to have her passport photo taken at 12:30 p.m.

Romero and others said having a larger space for the consulate would be a blessing but that improvements in service, including more employees, also would help.

Lemus Gas said the search would include looking for a site with a parking area that doesn’t charge $6 an hour, as does the nearest garage to the downtown consulate. He said the new consulate should be in the area between U.S. Highway 95, Maryland Parkway, Interstate 215 and Sahara Avenue.

Thomas C. Wright, a UNLV history professor and an editor of “The Peoples of Las Vegas: One City, Many Faces,” said the consulate’s impending move is a sign of the valley’s increasing cosmopolitanism, just as the agency’s opening was in 2002.

“Because the Las Vegas metropolitan area is truly an international city, it’s not surprising we’re seeing a growth in demand (at the consulate),” he said.

“And I’m sure we also will soon see other consulates.”

Timothy Pratt can be reached at 259-8828 or at timothy@lasvegassun.com.

A customer waits for service at the Mexican consulate in Las Vegas. The consul is looking to relocate the crowded office and is seeking help from the community in choosing a new site.