Immigrant Lobby Day canceled at Nevada Legislature amid ICE activity in Northern Nevada

The Nevada State Legislature building in Carson City, NV Friday, April 2, 2021. Photo by: Ricardo Torres-Cortez

The Nevada Immigrant Coalition is canceling the Immigrant Lobby Day it hosts at the Nevada Legislature due to immigration enforcement activity in Northern Nevada, officials said today.

Outside of the pandemic, it’s the first time the legislative session won’t feature a day dedicated to advocating for Nevada’s immigrant population since 2011, coalition member Laura Martin wrote in a news release.

Just under 10% of the state’s workforce is undocumented, according to Pew Research Center. The event was scheduled for next Tuesday.

The cancellation “is a stark consequence of how Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda continues to sow fear, disrupt our economy, and undermine democracy,” said Martin, the executive director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada.

Leo Murrieta, another coalition member and executive director of Make the Road Nevada, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been using plainclothes officers and unmarked vehicles upstate. KRNV in Carson City reported that federal agents arrested over 30 people early this week, all of whom ICE says have a prior criminal conviction.

It creates “a chilling effect that is keeping immigrant families from safely accessing their own elected representatives to share their stories as we advocate for a better future,” Murrieta wrote. “These enforcement operations are not law and order, they are state-sanctioned terror.”

He additionally called on Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and other state representatives to make sure that people’s due process rights are being respected and ICE to release information about how many Nevadans have been detained by immigration enforcement.

Immigrant advocates said they had seen increased immigration enforcement late last month, but ICE hasn’t disclosed details behind the operation. A spokesperson with the agency previously told the Sun that “when we have information to release, we will.”