Narrowing the gateway to the Americas: South Florida's open door to Latin America has been key to the region's development. New immigration policies and proposals threaten to close it

South Florida CEO, July, 2004 by Joshua P. Bratter

With the acuity of a hawk, South Florida visionaries have for decades looked at the Americas and seen all the way to the Southern Cone of Latin America. They have envisioned a single America with Miami as its gateway: a city providing a base of stability, safety, entrepreneurship, and innovation for an entire region.

But suddenly, in the aftermath of Sept. 11, the hawk's far-sighted vision for Miami was replaced by the myopia of a charging bull. Instead of the clear, broad vistas admired by the hawk, the bull sees only what is in front of it and is indifferent to that against which it charges.

These developments threaten the dynamic that has made Miami much more than a prosperous southern US city. As the unofficial capital of the Americas, the city has turned the social and economic problems of the Latin American region into its own gains. The region's best and brightest minds have flocked to Miami and South Florida, creating a reservoir of capital and brainpower unlike any other.

Countless alliances, once unthinkable to Latin Americans, have become possible in South Florida. Deals that would have been swallowed up by bureaucratic sinkholes and antithetical economic policies have been galvanized by South Florida's fluid movement of money and ideas. Research, development, originality, ownership, and the human talent to bring about change have been encouraged and allowed to function in our region without undue governmental restraint.

That unencumbered exchange is threatened by a spate of post-Sept. 11 immigration policies and proposed legislation. These ill-conceived restrictions are already having a chilling effect on the free movement of ideas, people, and capital that made Miami flourish as an imaginative business capital. With the acquisition of the FTAA Secretariat in the balance, these policies could not come at a worse time.

Real estate, investment, and inter-American trade all now confront restraints that paradoxically seem more akin to current and past protectionist politics of Latin American nations.

Take, for example, the proposed change to restrict the admission of persons with tourist visas to the number of days required to accomplish the purpose of their visit. While this policy is not yet official, it is being applied at the discretion of immigration inspectors.

As a result, foreign nationals are today subject to an unpredictable process where they bear the burden of explaining, to the satisfaction of their assigned US Citizenship and Immigration Services inspector, why they may need to stay in the US for more than 30 days--the new default period of admission (The default period was formerly six months).

Here is a real-life example of the way these new rules can get in the way of doing business. The businessman who had this experience asked that I not print his real name, just to be on the safe side because, "Getting into Miami can be a little unpredictable these days," as he puts it.

Miguel, an Uruguayan CEO for a multinational company, recently arrived at Miami International Airport to close negotiations on the purchase of a hotel on Miami Beach. According to the Code of Federal Regulations, business visitors may be admitted into the country for the purposes of engaging in business, but not for the purpose of obtaining employment.

Presenting his tourist visa to the immigration inspector, Miguel is asked, "Do you intend to work while in the United States?" Reflecting on the purpose of his visit, he replies. "Yes." While he will not be employed in the US, he will certainly be working, since, in his opinion, negotiations are a part of work.

The inspector, anxious because the line of recently arrived passengers is growing longer, permits him to stay for the default 30 days: an insufficient time to complete the negotiations. Miguel struggles to explain what he meant by "work," but it is too late. He either accepts it or goes to a detention no-man's land to ponder the difference between engaging in business and "work" and to wonder what will become of his Magic City deal.

We must respect the obvious fact that South Florida is what it is today because of the massive amounts of human, economic and creative capital that have transcended borders and coalesced here.

Like many other local entrepreneurs, I marvel at the prosperity and economic vitality South Florida has achieved in recent decades. Changing the historically flexible policies of admission at our ports of entry for persons with valid US visas could wreak havoc with our thriving real estate market and other industries, which so depend on the ease of entry and the transferring of one's money across national frontiers. Most alarming, many of the proposed post-Sept. 11 rules seem destined to create just this sort of confusion if they are implemented.

JOSHUA P. BRATTER

IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY AND PARTNER, BRATTER KRIEGER, LLP, MIAMI BEACH

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