immigrants rights

The New Faces of Day Labor

Ken Buchanan, left, waits for work at a Home Depot Thursday morning. Most weeks he’s there six days. The most he’s made in a week: $140. (photo: Steve Marcus)

It sounds like a George Lopez joke.

“Times are so bad that I saw an Anglo day laborer standing outside Home Depot the other day.”

Except it’s true.

In the latest sign of the Las Vegas Valley’s economic free fall, U.S. citizens are starting to show up in the early mornings outside home improvement stores and plant nurseries across the Las Vegas Valley, jostling with illegal immigrants for a shot at a few hours of work.

Experts say the slow-starting but seemingly inexorable trend is occurring nationwide.

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