Nevada’s captains of industry and political leaders are doing little, if anything, to prepare for the potential economic hit as well as the human toll of President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to deport at least 11 million undocumented immigrants, including 189,000 who live in Nevada.
Trump has long said he intends to use the National Guard, local law enforcement, and possibly the military, to achieve his goal – beginning on “day one.”
“Getting them out will be a bloody story,” Trump said at a rally in Wisconsin earlier this year of Operation Aurora, named for the Colorado town Trump insists is being taken over by Venezuelan gangs.
Gov. Joe Lombardo ignored multiple inquiries from the Current about whether he’ll assist Trump by deploying the state’s National Guard.
UNLV Immigration Clinic Director Michael Kagan says he’s not surprised the governor is evading questions about whether he’ll cooperate with Trump, observing that as sheriff of Clark County, Lombardo was keen on cooperating with ICE.
“Lombardo more or less ran on that when he campaigned for governor,” Kagan told the Current. “He has to run for re-election himself in two years, so a request like that could put him in the hot seat.”
Trump is naming a team of loyalists to oversee the effort – as Attorney General, former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, who was investigated but not charged by the Justice Dept. for allegedly operating a sex trafficking ring of underage girls; former adviser and speechwriter Stephen Miller, one of the pro-deportation architects of Project 2025, as his assistant chief of staff for policy; former ICE director Tom Homan as ‘border czar’; and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Director.
Homeland Security oversees not only immigration, but also anti-terrorism initiatives and the Secret Service. Noem is best known for killing her hunting dog and a goat out of anger.
The president-elect pledges to remove some 11 to 13.5 million undocumented individuals whose contributions to the economy are significant but often unseen – particularly in construction, hospitality, and agriculture.
A report from the American Immigration Council (AIC) pegs the cost of a one-time deportation operation at $315 billion. ICE currently has only 41,000 beds. Detaining immigrants is estimated to cost $167.8 billion. CNN reported this week that Trump’s associates have been working with the private sector to detain and deport the undocumented population, citing sources familiar with the discussions.
AIC’s estimate of $315 billion is conservative and does not account for long-term costs of a sustained operation “or the incalculable additional costs necessary to acquire the institutional capacity to remove over 13 million people in a short period of time—incalculable because there is simply no reality in which such a singular operation is possible.”
Assuming 20 percent of the undocumented population would “self-deport”, the AIC estimates the costs of a multi-year campaign at $88 billion a year and $968 billion over a decade.
According to the AIC, mass deportation in Nevada would:
remove some 136,000 undocumented workers who make up 9% of the state’s employed workforce, the highest share per capita in the nation;remove almost one-quarter of skilled construction workers and 13% of hospitality workers:result in the loss of 43% of landscaping and groundskeeping workers; 42.5% of construction laborers, 41.6% of carpenters, 35.3% of housekeeping workers, and 25.4% of cooks.
U.S. born Americans, who work for undocumented entrepreneurs, are also at risk of losing their jobs.
Kagan says the “devastation to the Nevada economy and to Nevada’s families and communities is something that I don’t think anyone alive has any lived experience to calculate, to understand.”
An analysis from the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy concludes that mass deportation adversely affects society because businesses do not replace the deported workers.
“This is because they do not find U.S. workers who want to do the jobs; they turn to machines to replace the workers, depending on the industry, or because they reduce operations, resulting in layoffs, elimination of positions, or salary reductions,” writes Maribel Hastings of America’s Voice, an immigrant rights organization.
AIC projects gross domestic product would decline by 4.2 to 6.8% as a result of mass deportation. Tax revenue for the federal government, buoyed by $46.8 billion in annual federal income tax paid by undocumented immigrants, would plunge, as would state and local coffers across the country, which receive $29.3 billion a year from the undocumented population.
Undocumented immigrants also contribute $22.6 billion annually to Social Security and $5.7 billion to Medicare.
A study released this year from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning, nonprofit think tank, found undocumented immigrants paid nearly $100 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2022.
Undocumented immigrants would contribute another $40.2 billion more per year in federal, state and local taxes if the population had legal permission to work, pay taxes, and receive the benefits.
In Nevada, undocumented immigrants paid a total of $507.1 million in taxes in 2022, with more than half, $271.9 million, in the form of sales tax, the study said.
Joe Lombardo gives a thumbs up to Donald Trump in Las Vegas while running for governor in July, 2022. (CSPAN screengrab)
Lombardo also did not respond to questions about the impact of deportation on Nevada’s budget, which is heavily reliant on sales tax.
Trump, in deporting millions of undocumented immigrants “would degrade productive capacity, balloon deficits and — yes — bring inflation roaring back, keeping a grim pledge on punitive immigration policy while breaking one on providing relief to American consumers,” economist Paul Krugman wrote Monday in the New York Times.
The cost of bacon, a favorite flashpoint for conservative voters who are banking on Trump’s promise to lower prices, is likely a fraction of what it would be should undocumented workers, who comprise roughly half of the nation’s agricultural workers (who kill livestock in addition to picking fruits and vegetables) be removed.
“There has long been collective, willful blindness,” Kagan says of the ubiquitous space undocumented immigrants take up in the economy and in communities. “We see it everywhere, but it’s also easy to ignore it.”
Although Trump’s prelude to deportation has been lengthy and loud, political and business leaders in Nevada are revealing no concrete plans to impede it.
U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto says she “will always stand up for hardworking immigrant communities,” and will “do everything in her power” to stop Trump. She would not say what power she has to derail the deportation plan or whether she’s discussed it with Lombardo.
“Senator Jacky Rosen has serious concerns about a far-reaching plan to deport immigrants who haven’t committed crimes and who are contributing to our economy every day,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “She’s committed to standing up for Nevada’s hardworking immigrant community, and will fight back against efforts that would separate law-abiding families.”
The spokesperson did not say how Rosen would “fight back” or whether she’s talked with Lombardo.
Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat who has been named as a potential rival to Lombardo in 2026, would not say whether he’s discussed Trump’s deportation plan with the governor.
Trump’s priorities for a second term include building affordable housing – a product that is likely to be slowed and made more expensive by mass deportation. The Southern Nevada Home Builders Association said it had nothing to share on the topic, and declined to say whether the organization had approached Lombardo.
Trump is also counting on deportation to free up homes for citizens. In 2022, 39% or 1.6 million undocumented immigrants nationwide owned their own homes. Census data indicates about a third of unauthorized immigrants in Nevada are homeowners.
The Nevada Resort Association, which represents the state’s gaming and resort industry, is unaware of any discussions about the effects of deportation among its members, some of the largest employers in the state.
“I don’t think the resorts employ undocumented people,” NRA president Virginia Valentine said via email.
The “devastation to the Nevada economy and to Nevada’s families and communities is something that I don’t think anyone alive has any lived experience to calculate, to understand.”
– Michael Kagan, director, UNLV Immigration Clinic
Many resort industry employees, however, live in mixed-status households, says Culinary Local 226 Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge. “It’s their family members, their neighbors, their friends,” who are at risk of deportation, he says. Trump, who owns a hotel in Las Vegas, would likely suffer from a dearth of hospitality workers.
The union, which represents nearly 60,000 workers, also counts among its members Dreamers, young people brought to the country illegally as children, who have been awarded temporary protected status via Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
The AIC estimates some 5.1 million U.S. born children live in America’s four million mixed-status households, and projects the deportation of a breadwinner would result in decreased household income of 62.7% or $51,200 a year. In Nevada, 9% of households are mixed-status, the largest share in the nation, according to Pew Research.
The state’s Department of Employment and Training Rehabilitation says it has no data on the effect of deportation on the workforce and the economy.
Pappageorge says conducting mass deportations “is a ridiculous idea. It will blow up this economy, and with Trump’s policies of tariffs, you don’t know what it’s going to do.”
The union “negotiated very tough language in our contract that essentially supports the rights for folks to become citizens, but also requires companies to follow the rule of law and not be agents of wild mass raids and deportations,” Pappageorge says. “We’re going to fight like hell to protect our members, their families and this economy.”
The Las Vegas Chamber acknowledges Trump’s deportation plan and intent to impose tariffs would affect its members.
“Our Government Affairs Committee hasn’t weighed in on those issues at all,” spokeswoman Cara Clarke said during an interview. “Our members, like the rest of the nation, are still processing results, and no specific policies have been brought forward for enactment or for legislative debate.”
Scott Muelrath, president and CEO of the Henderson Chamber, declined to respond to inquiries, according to a spokeswoman.
“The discussions with industries/members and the LCC, has been consistently asking, begging (for), demanding etc. Comprehensive Immigration Reform“ says Latin Chamber of Commerce president Peter Guzman. “My members need employees, and immigration done correctly can help fill those voids. Furthermore, it is important that this country have a dignified process for immigrants to continue to contribute to this great country. Without that dignified reform, you get chaos.” He declined to say whether he has discussed deportation with Lombardo.
Bryan Wachter of the Retail Association of Nevada says he’s keeping an eye on the situation but has yet to discuss it with members.
The local chapter of the National Federation of Independent Businesses says it is not involved in the issue and declined to say whether it has discussed deportation with Lombardo.
NFIB’s October jobs report notes 35% percent of business owners reported having job openings they could not fill in October, up one point from September, while 49% of contractors have an open position they can’t fill.
“I know Trump says ‘day one’ but that’s not the way it would work,” says Kagan. “This would be more like a big, heavy train that starts off going extremely slowly, but then accelerates.‘
Deportation is a four-step process. The government must first identify, locate, and apprehend undocumented people. Next it must determine whether an individual can be released on bond, paroled, or detained. Experts say it’s likely most or all would remain in custody. Third, a judge determines if the immigrant qualifies for relief, or if the government should be awarded an order of removal, or allow the person to voluntarily leave. Lastly, the government deports the individual, who is generally repatriated to their home or another country.
Project 2025, which Trump claims he knows nothing about, calls for military assistance in the apprehension of undocumented people, while Trump’s own Agenda 47 envisions the National Guard and local law enforcement lending a hand. He’s also said he’d “have no problem” using the military.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Trump’s advisers are “weighing a national emergency declaration that would allow the incoming administration to repurpose military assets to detain and remove migrants.”
Democratic governors in some states could mount a resistance to using the Guard and local police. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey told MSNBC that she would “absolutely not” allow state police to assist with deportations.
Should Lombardo and others resist a Trump bid to allow the Nevada National Guard to assist, the future president could override them via the Insurrection Act of 1807, which allows the president to deploy the National Guard, and which Trump has threatened to use.
State Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro and Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager did not respond to requests for comment.
Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill would not say whether he’d allow Metro Police to take part in deportations.
However, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police provided a policy that says although officers have the authority to assist with federal law enforcement, Metro “will not enforce immigration violations. Officers will not stop and question, detain, arrest” on the grounds that an individual is undocumented.
Refusing to participate could cost Metro in the form of federal funding. Trump is considering pulling grants from police departments that refuse to cooperate.
In 2019 — when Trump was in office and Lombardo was sheriff — Metro ended its immigration agreement with ICE. The controversial partnership called for holding detainees on misdemeanor charges until immigration agents could arrive and transfer to federal detention for removal from the country.
However, in 2021, after Lombardo crowed at a campaign event about deporting 10,000 immigrants, the Las Vegas Review-Journal revealed that Metro, under Lombardo’s direction, helped Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrest non-violent undocumented immigrants – the same people Trump now seeks to deport.
The Washoe County Sheriff also declined to answer. “At this time, that is a hypothetical question and we have no comment,” a spokeswoman said.
Local law enforcement, critics argue, is not set up to manage such duties and still keep their communities safe.
Trump’s demonization of immigrants as criminals who are “poisoning the blood” of Americans has resulted in a phenomenon in which people discount any application of his policies to them or those they know, suggests Kaplan.
“People convince themselves ‘he’s not talking about me,’ or ‘he’s not talking about my employee,’ or ‘he’s not talking about my neighbor or my friend’. He talks about them all as criminals or even worse. And so people think ‘he’s clearly not talking about the people I know.’”
Trump and his surrogates have said they’ll target criminals first. But Kagan notes the government is already deporting undocumented immigrants who have criminal records.
Trump deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term, about the same as the 1.49 million deported by Pres. Joe Biden’s administration, which also turned back some 3 million immigrants at the border under Title 42, a Trump policy that remained in effect for much of Biden’s term.
“If they really only want to target people who have criminal records, that’s not very different from the Biden policy. There is a line to be drawn. How serious a criminal record do you have to have to be a target? You could turn the dial up a little bit, and affect some people, but that’s in the margins. That’s what they did in the first Trump term. That’s not a mass deportation.”
“In my work, I have to take him seriously about what he said he wants to do, and there are a lot of signs that both Donald Trump and the people around him have given a good deal of thought to this,” he says “So you’re not going to be talking about people with criminal records. You’re going to be talking about everyday people who are very integrated in our community.”
Trump, for all his pro-family rhetoric, has no qualms about separating children from their parents via deportation.
“When you hear that you’re going to be separated from your family, you don’t come,” Trump said in a 2023 interview with Univision.
“People need to be deported,” Homan, Trump’s designated border czar, has said. “No one should be off the table.”
That includes recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) – people who arrived in the country illegally as children – as well as those granted temporary status while cooperating with law enforcement prosecution of labor law violations (Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement), and others with temporary protected status.
“I don’t think it’s going to be the mass deportation he’s been talking about,” says Alfonso Lopez, political director and organizer for Sheet Metal Workers Local 88 in Las Vegas. “When you try to deport 10 or 11 million people, you know the economy is going to take a hit, and that’s one of his biggest campaign issues – to improve the economy.”
“He can build a perfect storm. That’s for sure,” said Lopez’ colleague Robert Diaz. “Chaos follows him, and somehow he can wrangle the tornado.”
Trump’s campaign declined to address the dissonance of its pledges to lower costs on goods and services while purging the nation of low-income workers who perform jobs Americans reject.
“The people of Nevada elected Donald Trump to carry out an America First agenda that includes enforcing our laws and deporting illegal immigrants” Trump’s Nevada communications director said via email following the election.
“He will deliver,” added a spokeswoman for the Trump-Vance transition team.