As the American Rescue Plan, the third and latest pandemic stimulus bill, was being argued and debated last week, the inevitable Republican talking point reared its ugly head. “But, but… we’re just going to make thousandaires of all those lazy, COVID-infested, murderous illegals. OMG. The. Horror.” OK, so that’s an amalgamation of a few Republican talking points, but in my defense, they all boil down to one idea: immigrants don’t deserve support; they don’t deserve to prosper; they don’t deserve to not suffer. In that version of reality, the immigrant worker contributes nothing but only takes, driven to ‘Murica for all those freebies they simply have to hold out a hand to receive. But much like many, many other Republican talking points, that version of reality is a straight-up, bald-faced, easily refutable lie.  

First of all, let’s disabuse ourselves of this notion that most immigrants, particularly undocumented ones, are eligible for any kind of federal public benefits. They are not. Period. They are not getting welfare payments. They are not getting food stamps. They are not, I promise you, getting stimulus checks. In fact, we typically go so far out of our way to make sure no undocumented person receives even an indirect public benefit that the bill that enabled the first stimulus checks last year made sure to also exclude U.S. citizen and resident spouses of undocumented immigrants. Those mixed status families gotta learn somehow, amirite? 

Why shouldn’t all workers, undocumented or otherwise, get their share of relief meant to stimulate the economy? An economy, mind you, that they contribute to in soaring numbers, particularly here in Las Vegas. Foreign-born workers make up more than 17 percent of the U.S. labor force.  In Nevada, that figure goes up to 25 percent . If we break that down further by industry, it is obvious that the hospitality industry would all but collapse without its immigrant workers. Hospitality, of course, is what Vegas lives and breathes. It’s why even as the pandemic was raging last summer and fall (and winter), we rushed to reopen casinos and hotels, inviting tourists from other wildin’ states to come and visit. (Lookin’ at you, Florida and Texas!) 

Let’s take, for example, your typical Las Vegas tourists. They arrive at the airport and call themselves a car service; there’s a 41 percent chance their driver will be foreign-born. They get to their hotel; there’s a 43 percent chance that the doorman, the porter, and the front desk clerk will be immigrants. Their dinner at a fancy (or not so fancy) restaurant has a 51 percent chance of being prepared by an immigrant cook. And when they wake up the next day and leave their room an absolute mess, there’s a 74 percent chance they’ll have an immigrant to thank for making it clean and inviting before they return. 

Now, let’s imagine what Vegas would look like without all of these people. Tell me now why each and every single one of them shouldn’t get a stimulus check? 

Let me take a step back here for a moment, though, because I realize I might also be helping to perpetuate yet another misconception. The truth is that the majority of immigrants in Nevada are here with legal permission to live and work freely, but a chunk, a really significant chunk — 29 percent to be exact — isn’t. Approximately 1 in every 8 households in the state include at least one undocumented family member. But before you get out the pitchforks, consider that regardless of how they got here or why they stayed, undocumented immigrants in Nevada in 2019 paid more than $129 million in state taxes and $243 million in federal income taxes. More than ten-thousand of them are entrepreneurs, also known as job creators. Their spending power is calculated at $3.4 billion. That’s right, undocumented immigrants continuously contribute billions (with a “B”) to the survival of a country that refuses to contribute to theirs. What non-bigoted argument can be made for why they don’t deserve protection? 

Of course, while money is super important, protecting our immigrant workers and their families requires more than just financial support. Unlike other struggling populations, of which I recognize there are many, immigrant families also have to live with the constant threat of detention and deportation for the crime of merely existing on the wrong side of the border or on the wrong side of the world. A state that is so dependent on the labor of its foreign-born population, labor that fuels an industry contributing billions of state tax dollars annually, should expend exactly zero dollars on ensuring its demise. Nevada must cease any contribution of state resources to federal efforts that seek to criminalize and otherwise demonize immigrants, regardless of their legal status. Immigration enforcement is a federal issue, driven by federal law. Let’s keep it that way. Federalism and all that. 

In a year where we’ve paid so much lip service to exalting essential workers, let us recognize that in Nevada there is no worker more essential than the hospitality worker, the immigrant worker, the immigrant entrepreneur. Protecting the economy means protecting workers and protecting workers means protecting immigrants. Let’s keep all of us safe, let’s keep all of us here. 

Martha E. Menendez, Esq. is the Bernstein Senior Fellow at the UNLV Immigration Clinic.