Data reveal pipeline opening from Las Vegas jails to ICE

Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.

President Donald Trump’s push to accelerate immigration enforcement is being felt in Las Vegas, where federal agents picked up 441 people with detainers and 173 with warrants from police custody from Feb. 7 through Sept. 1, according to Metro Police data obtained by the Sun in a public records request.

Metro’s Detention Services Division sent nearly 2,700 notices over that period to tell Immigration and Customs Enforcement it had booked someone believed to be a “foreign-born individual” charged with at least one among a variety of crimes, according to department policy. It sends another notice when that person is released.

How that differs from previous presidential administrations isn’t clear because Metro only started tracking the data this year. However, ICE has dramatically increased its efforts to pick people up from the Nevada Department of Corrections, according to Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office.

“ICE would pick up less than 20% of NDOC-released offenders upon release” before President Donald Trump retook the White House, according to a policy timeline from Lombardo’s office obtained by the Sun. Now, “NDOC releases 100% of ICE detainer offenders to federal authorities.”

ICE sent Metro either an I-200 or I-205 form, which Metro treats as a detainer and warrant, respectively, over 900 times in seven months, according to the department’s data. That’s 4.4 a day.

ICE uses detainers to request that law enforcement hold people for up to 48 hours past their release date so it can assume their custody.

Metro’s internal data suggests the agency took custody of around 74% of people Metro released with a detainer or related warrant this year.

That doesn’t mean the remaining 26% all walked free, as inmates listed as not being picked up “may mean they were released to other agencies like NDOC or the city,” Metro’s Public Records Unit wrote in a letter to the Sun.

Sadmira Ramic, senior staff attorney at the Nevada ACLU, called the number of people being reported to ICE “staggering.” That could be because Metro earlier this year expanded the list of crimes eligible for a notice beyond domestic violence, DUIs and violent felonies, to now include shoplifting and other forms of theft.

The notices cover people charged with a crime, not necessarily convicted of one, stressed UNLV Immigration Clinic Director Michael Kagan. That creates two separate criminal justice systems, he said: one for citizens and another for everyone else.

While that can mean harsher outcomes for undocumented immigrants, it can also work in the other direction, Kagan said. “There’s always the chance” someone given to ICE “might escape punishment” for a serious crime, he said.

“If some people are handed over to ICE without even having a criminal case finished, then we don’t have blind justice,” Kagan said.

“Aggressive immigration enforcement” also has the potential to disrupt public safety and the local economy, he said. Around 9% of Nevada’s workforce is undocumented, according to the American Immigration Council.

“If it gets out to the public that Las Vegas Metro is reporting all those people to ICE when they’re encountered, that’s pretty frightening to many people,” Kagan said. It “might start to have a very detrimental effect on whether people are willing to call the police when they need help.”

Responding to a separate records request from the Sun in March, Metro’s Public Records Unit wrote that “there is no central file or database that can generate the number of notifications or that contains all the notifications.”

But Metro wrote in a statement that it began manually collecting data on immigration on Feb. 7, with “automated data collecting” starting in June. The Sun’s original request sought data from Jan. 6 to Feb. 10.

Still, “the response (the Sun) received was correct because aggregated data was not being compiled during the subject period,” according to Metro. “As stated in March, notifications to ICE had been kept in individual inmate files.”

The Sun only became aware of the data after it appeared in a separate records request querying emails within the department.

In one email from May, Detention Services Deputy Chief Nita Schmidt sent a weekly immigration report to Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill and members of Metro’s executive staff. Assistant Sheriff Fred Haas, who oversees the Detention Services Division, also sent the data to Jamie Ioos, director of Metro’s Office of Public Information.

Nevada’s expanding relationship with ICE

The Nevada ACLU has warned that “foreign-born,” the criteria Metro uses for notices, includes people who aren’t undocumented. The label would apply to around 21% of Nevada residents, according to 2023 U.S. Census Bureau data.

There are around 220,000 undocumented immigrants in the state, Pew Research found using 2023 data. That’s less than a third of the nearly 670,000 people in Nevada not born in the United States.

Adding to that, the newly obtained dataset includes a category for “Total Unknowns with Qualifying Charges” alongside a separate row for total “foreign-born” people. Over 300 people are listed under the “unknowns” category.

Metro clarified that the department has not sent notifications to ICE for people under that category.

But when pressed on whether the department was sending notifications for anyone considered “foreign-born” or just undocumented immigrants, Metro reiterated that “only foreign-born individuals that meet the crime criteria are reported to ICE.”

Metro’s relationship with ICE was altered again after it recently joined a 287(g) agreement. The version Metro signed in May, the least invasive among ICE’s options, enables officers to serve immigration warrants.

As part of the agreement, ICE also dictates that Metro can detain people for up to 48 hours past their release.

Ramic said the ACLU doesn’t have a clear picture of how Metro’s policy changes are being implemented, pointing to the organization’s lawsuit against the agency over withholding information asked for in public records requests.

“What is done in the dark will come to light, and we won’t be stonewalled,” ACLU Nevada Executive Director Athar Haseebullah said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed. “We will now pursue these records in court because Nevadans deserve government transparency.”

Lombardo included the new 287(g) agreement in his policy timeline sent to the Department of Justice after the agency listed Nevada as an immigrant “sanctuary,” according to the Nevada Independent.

Along with the DOJ designation last month, the Department of Homeland Security accused Las Vegas of being a sanctuary jurisdiction in May. That label was quickly disputed by Lombardo and Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley, a Democrat.

Berkley also said at a July press conference that while she had not influenced McMahill’s decision to sign the agreement, she supported the decision.

“It’s really disappointing to see Lombardo, McMahill and even Mayor Berkley fight to prove themselves to Donald Trump versus fighting to protect our Constitution,” said Laura Martin, executive director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada.

Kagan added that the sanctuary jurisdiction lists lack a legal leg to stand on.

He also believes McMahill is trying to walk a fine line by complying with ICE while, as seen through the new 287(g) agreement, not going to the fullest extent possible.

“I’m sure that dynamic is going to continue,” Kagan said, “and it’s going to be important to watch.”

[email protected] / 702-990-8923 / @Kyle_Chouinard