Peter Guzman, president of the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce, recently wrote a commentary for the Las Vegas Review Journal touting the contribution of immigrants to the Las Vegas economy.
Guzman cited studies conducted by the bipartisan group New American Economy. The study found that nearly one in five Nevada residents is foreign born. In Las Vegas, 22 percent of the population is foreign-born and in 2014 those residents possessed $8.8 billion in spending power.
“By in large, immigrants have made great contributions not only to this country but to Nevada and specifically Las Vegas,” Guzman said during an interview with FileRight.com
Guzman believes our immigration system needs to be updated and the update should include improving the legal immigration process.
“With today’s technology. I still can’t believe that it takes so many years to do things even the right way,” Guzman said. A citizenship application can take anywhere from six months to a year to be processed by the USCIS.
Guzman also pointed to the fact that nearly all immigration applications are still filed on paper.
“What I can’t understand is the handwritten process, the archaic process, especially when technology exists such as FileRight.com to make that go away,” Guzman said.
FileRight.com’s CEO Cesare Alessandrini wrote extensively about the USCIS and it’s technological failures extensively for Forbes.
Guzman said he is gearing up to start asking congressional leaders why the immigration process has seen no significant improvements.
“One must ask, is that done intentionally? Is that done to discourage fixing this problem? Is it done to discourage this process because of campaign rhetoric because of campaigns,” Guzman said.