Has Lombardo loyalty affected ICE presence in Nevada? The answer is complicated

Some think political loyalty between President Donald Trump and Gov. Joe Lombardo keeps massive ICE raids at bay. Others suggest that it has nothing to do with that.

State politicos say Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s cooperation with federal authorities—along with President Donald Trump’s close ties to casino executives who bankroll his campaigns—has so far spared Nevada from large-scale immigration raids, The Nevada Independent reports. State Democrats, however, questioned the governor’s relative silence regarding the brutality perpetrated by federal authorities.

Early this year, immigration enforcement officers in Minnesota sparked outrage after two US citizens were fatally shot by federal agents amid operations—37-year old mother Renee Nicole Good and then 37-year old Veterans Affairs nurse Alex Pretti. Both shootings took place in Minneapolis neighborhoods.   

It wasn’t until Pretti’s death that Lombardo released a statement backing President Donald Trump’s efforts but acknowledging Constitutional rights. 

“It’s shameful that our governor, Joe Lombardo, refuses to speak out or stand up to President Trump,” Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford wrote in a statement from his campaign. “That’s not leadership.”

Meanwhile, political pundits blame the chaos in Minnesota on political posture, noting that its governor, Tim Walz, a Democrat, ran for Vice President last year and has resisted White House orders on immigration reform, according to The Nevada Independent. 

Nevada, however, has not entirely escaped immigration crackdowns, despite Lombardo’s loyalty.

“ICE is ramping up arrests in Nevada, and has been since last year,” Michael Kagan, director of the Immigration Clinic at the UNLV Boyd School of Law, told The Nevadan-El Nevadense. “It’s just not the highly visible, very militarized operation that we’ve seen in some other states.”

Kagan added that the president’s actions can’t be predicted and that the lack of sweeping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids could change quickly, especially after Nevada arrests reportedly increased by 300% in the first several months of the Trump administration. 

According to the non-partisan Prison Policy Initiative, which researches mass criminalization, most ICE arrests in Nevada have happened within corrections, meaning a detainee was already apprehended by local police and then remanded to ICE custody.

Through the 287g agreement—a policy that authorizes local police to take up ICE duties—within months of the Trump administration’s crackdown, 634 inmates from jails and state corrections were shuffled into federal custody. Another 1,098 were removed from state police custody to ICE facilities in the months that followed. Fewer than 700 individuals were detained by ICE at home, workplaces, or community locations during the same periods.

These mass federal arrests led the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Nevada to file a lawsuit against the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department last fall, arguing the partnership violates state laws. The case file states that 287g allows local law enforcement to “detain people beyond their scheduled release dates.”

Challenging LVMPD Sheriff Kevin McMahill’s deployment of 287g, the lawsuit claims it was done against Nevada’s Dillon’s Rule governance, which bars state or local agencies from assisting the federal government without authorization from the state legislature. The lawsuit further argues that the Nevada statute mandates the federal government to fully reimburse municipalities for any detention of federal detainees. 

“Under the 287(g) agreement, LVMPD has been holding individuals for ICE without reimbursement, forcing Nevada taxpayers to cover the costs,” an ACLU Nevada case summary reads.

According to Athar Haseebullah, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, the idea that large-scale ICE raids would bypass the state is “absurd.” Haseebullah, who helped file this case, also led a lawsuit against the Department of Motor Vehicles last year for unlawfully concealing public records of sensitive data with ICE, arguing that these actions undermine any such assertion.

He added that the “rogue” administration puts Nevada in the same position as every state, vulnerable to sudden, aggressive ICE action.

“In reality, what we’re seeing is a rogue administration that is not following the law,” Haseebullah said. “In fact, it’s simply using violence and threats of violence as a tool to coerce compliance.”

Nevada leads the nation in undocumented immigrants per capita, with an estimated population of 200,000. Pew Research found that in 2022, the Silver State had the most mixed-status households—homes with at least one undocumented individual—in the country. The state also topped the list for the largest share of unauthorized immigrants in the workforce.

“If the administration is serious about pursuing mass deportation and mass detention, then Las Vegas is a natural target,” Kagan said of sweeping ICE raids, which have so far gone below the radar, relatively. “In fact, it would be surprising if it were not targeted eventually.”