Leaders decry illegal worker crackdown

Local businesses, trade groups and civil-rights organizations on Friday slammed new federal regulations designed to clamp down on illegal immigrants in the work force.

The rules, which take effect in a month, rely too much on an already-overburdened worker-verification system, employers say.

The policies also could lead to workplace discrimination against U.S. citizens and legal residents, according to a civil-rights group.

Federal studies have shown that boosting sanctions against employers who hire illegals can increase the incentive to discriminate against all prospective workers with Hispanic last names, said Gary Peck, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada. That's because employers, concerned about losing staffers or facing penalties for even inadvertently hiring illegals, will decide the potential negatives of an ethnic hire outweigh the positives, Peck said.

"Employers here in Nevada are going to have a real incentive to discriminate, and they are going to make hiring mistakes," Peck said. "And I can assure you that workers and prospective workers who have legal status are going to get caught up in this in a way that will be profoundly unfair and terribly counterproductive. Some people who shouldn't are going to slip through the cracks, and other people who shouldn't be are going to be denied employment. It's both over-inclusive and under-inclusive."

Plus, any policies that discourage the recruitment of Hispanics, who make up roughly 25 percent of the local population, could drag down the Las Vegas economy, Peck said.

Major local industries including gaming and construction need a constant stream of workers, and interrupting the flow of job candidates could hurt growth.

"Discrimination isn't efficient from a pure business perspective," Peck said. "You want to hire the very best people for the job with as little trouble as possible. You don't want to be hiring people based on race, ethnicity or surname. You don't want to create impediments to filling openings."

Steve Holloway, executive vice president of the Las Vegas chapter of Associated General Contractors, said construction companies in Las Vegas already can't fill all their open positions.

Even after placing every new high-school graduate from area trade programs, contractors are left with empty spots on the staff roster, Holloway said.

Pilar Weiss, political director of the Culinary Workers Local 226, said major companies in the gaming industry already have extensive administrative functions in place for checking workers' backgrounds.

But smaller companies, casino vendors such as farmers, truckers and warehouses, don't often take verification measures beyond what the federal government requires, she said.

Current law demands that job applicants complete federal forms to verify their eligibility to work in the United States. In addition, they must submit identification documents such as a Social Security card, a naturalization certificate, a birth certificate or a driver's license.

Adding stricter "no-match" rules to the verification mix could make it harder for suppliers in the resort sector to bring on workers, especially given the potential for errors and inaccuracies in federal records, Weiss said.

Local employers said existing methods for checking information through federal agencies aren't always effective, either because of errors in workers' information or because of time lags in confirming details.

Every year, the Internal Revenue Service flags as questionable the W-2 forms of MGM Mirage employees who merely got married and changed their last names, said Yvette Monet, a spokeswoman for the resort operator.

Monet said executives of MGM Mirage couldn't comment on the extent of additional administrative resources the new rules would require until they knew more about the mechanism that would monitor Social Security details.

Las Vegas contractor Helix Electric follows federal laws pertaining to eligibility verification, and the company will obey the new policies, Leverich said. But complying won't come without significant effects on the business, said Joe Leverich, director of human resources, safety and training at Helix.

"There are going to be additional costs associated with a rule that's going to cause a less-efficient work load," he said. "So far, our experience is that (current verification tools) have not been that efficient, and the Social Security Administration right now doesn't have the resources themselves to comply with the rules."

Holloway said most of his trade group's member companies already attempt to verify applicants' Social Security numbers, and the process takes an average of three months.

Also, confirming Social Security numbers does little to stem the tide of illegal immigration, Holloway added.

When employers confront workers with incorrect Social Security data, the staffers simply quit on the spot and take a job with a different company.

The new employer will face the same process and suffer the same work-force disruptions as the previous employer.

"The underlying problem is that we have jobs that need to be filled, and immigrants from south of the border cannot make a good living down there because of how their economy is right now," Holloway said. "They're going to come north."