■ A committee passed a bill affecting law enforcement and immigration cases.

Backers: Measure restores communities’ trust in law enforcement

CARSON CITY — A bill limiting how local law enforcement agencies interact with federal authorities in immigration cases passed out of legislative committee Wednesday on a party-line vote after 2½ hours of testimony that frequently departed from discussion of the actual bill to a broader debate over immigration.

Testimony also showed widespread misunderstanding of the bill’s scope and intent, with opponents wrongly fearing it would block local authorities from detaining people wanted for crimes or hamstring agencies from communicating in all circumstances with their federal counterparts on matters involving non-u.s. citizens.

Rather, supporters said, Assembly Bill 376 was intended to restore trust among immigrant communities where individuals might not report crimes for fear of being detained on immigration charges and to save money by preventing local agencies from doing the work of their federal counterparts, such as Immi

gration and Customs Enforcement.

“There’s nothing in this legislation that says ICE can’t go and still detain an individual,” the bill’s main sponsor, Assemblywoman Selena Torres, D-las Vegas, told the Assembly Government Affairs Committee. She added: “There are obviously individuals that have committed crimes, and there’s nothing in this legislation that prevents immigration or law enforcement agencies from holding those individuals accountable.”

Cooperating with feds

ICE has 148 cooperative agreements with local law enforcement agencies in 26 states to perform limited immigration enforcement, but only one in Nevada, with the Nye County sheriff ’s office. The Metropolitan Police Department ended its agreement with ICE in 2019.

The bill would still see local agencies enforcing warrants issued by a judge. Regardless, the Las Vegas force and other law enforcement groups testified to oppose the bill, citing other provisions that they said would tie their hands, limit cooperative enforcement across agencies and potentially affect crime rates.

Other opponents focused on criminal activity and illegal immigration, often conflating them as one and the same.

“I got a list right here of all the people that were murdered in Nevada in the last two years,” said Assembly John Ellison, R-elko. “And these were people that come across the border that were illegal. And they got hungry, and they had to do whatever they could. They start robbing, stealing and murder.”

Ellison’s comment drew a caution from committee Chair Edgar Flores, D-las Vegas, who urged meeting participants to limit their remarks to the bill.

“Opening up the border is not a question before us,” he said.

Others opposing the bill, including the state Republican party, stuck to that theme in their opposing remarks, prompting Torres to say in her closing that “the term immigrant is not synonymous with criminal.”

The bill moves to the Assembly floor after the committee’s 8-5 party line vote, with Democrats in support.

Right to return to work

Unions and resort companies clashed during a hearing on a bill that would give hospitality and travel workers who were laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic the right to regain their lost jobs.

Senate Bill 386, which was heard in the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee on Wednesday, would require gaming and resort companies, event center and airport employers to offer employees who were furloughed or laid off during the pandemic their jobs back.

Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro, D-las Vegas, said that rehiring employees instead of searching for new workers would help to reduce unemployment in the state more quickly.

“We have to make sure that our workers, who have shouldered so much of the fallout from this pandemic, are not left behind,” Cannizzaro said.

Resorts and casinos laid off tens of thousands of workers amid the pandemic as Nevada’s gaming- and tourism-based economy came to a screeching halt.

While Nevada’s economy has recovered and the jobless rate has fallen from its peak of 29.5 percent in April 2020 to 8.3 percent in February of this year, it still ranks among the worst states for unemployment.

Erin Midby, vice president of government affairs for Boyd Gaming, called the bill “unnecessary at this time,” adding that the company has brought back more than 6,000 employees and are rehiring hundreds more.

“At the time that we are working towards recovery, this bill will only create burdensome, time consuming and counterproductive requirements which will only delay our efforts to timely rehire as many team members as possible,” Midby said.

The committee took no action on the bill.