Las Vegas isn’t a sanctuary city but legislation in Congress could treat it as one

There is no one definition of what a “sanctuary city” for undocumented immigrants is, though Las Vegas has rarely been considered one.

Then-Mayor Carolyn Goodman made that clear in a social media post the last time President Donald Trump was in office, writing in 2017, “@CityOfLasVegas is not a sanctuary city & we’re compliant w/ federal regulations. I’m passionate about finding a pathway to citizenship.”

The Las Vegas City Council hasn’t designated the city as a sanctuary either, unlike Los Angeles and New York City’s legislative bodies.

And while there’s no collaborative agreement between Metro Police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Metro has changed its policy in light of the new federal Laken Riley Act and will notify ICE when “foreign-born” people are booked for crimes ranging from shoplifting to murder. Congress passed the act, named after a University of Georgia nursing student killed by an undocumented immigrant with prior arrests, and Trump signed it last month. It mandates that federal authorities detain undocumented immigrants accused of crimes, including certain misdemeanors, with the possibility of deportation before conviction.

That might not be enough to keep Las Vegas out of the crosshairs of legislation making its way through Congress that would strip “any federal funds that the sanctuary jurisdiction intends to use for the benefit” of undocumented people.

Such language could apply to myriad programs, immigration experts told the Sun.

“Are you going to be cutting off all funding to our public schools here in Las Vegas? What is the extent of this?” asked Christopher Peterson, legal director for the Nevada ACLU. “You could tie a lot of public funding to services offered to undocumented people, especially if you’re not asking whether that someone’s undocumented or not.”

ICE will sometimes issue a detainer to law enforcement, requesting they voluntarily hold someone for up to 48 hours after their scheduled release. Metro’s policy states that the department does not delay releases at ICE’s request.

Immigration detainers can be legally dubious, with federal judges previously ruling that police departments could be held liable for unlawful detention. Metro stopped honoring ICE detainers in 2019.

Under the No Bailout for Sanctuary Cities Act, it’s possible that Las Vegas could be stamped as a sanctuary. The bill is set to reach the House of Representatives’ floor in the coming weeks, according to Politico.

“I think a lot of Nevadans don’t realize, under the current definition, we run the risk of potentially being considered a ‘sanctuary state’ or a ‘sanctuary city,’ even though we never claimed we were,” Peterson said.

Rico Ocampo, an organizer with immigrant rights group Make the Road Nevada, stood outside U.S. Rep. Susie Lee’s Las Vegas office Thursday afternoon armed with a megaphone.

While Democrats may be more associated with advocating for undocumented people, organizations like Make the Road Nevada have soured on the party in recent weeks.

Nevada’s entire congressional delegation voted for the Laken Riley Act. Five of the six members of the delegation are Democrats.

Ocampo told the crowd of over 50 people that they would hold those representatives responsible because they don’t want to repeat recent history with the No Bailout for Sanctuary Cities Act.

“You made a mistake when you voted for the Laken Riley Act,” Make the Road Director Leo Murrieta said at a news conference. “Our families, our neighborhoods, can’t afford for you to make that mistake again. We can’t let you fall prey to the MAGA agenda.”

On top of chants of “Sí, se puede,” directly translating to “Yes, it can be done,” Make the Road left a letter at Lee’s office saying that the group would continue its organizing if she again voted against immigrant communities.

At the same time, the organization had another event outside the Reno office of Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev.

Make the Road Nevada believes that the No Bailout for Sanctuary Cities Act would directly affect Las Vegas, and the broad language it uses to define what a sanctuary city is makes it dangerous, Murrieta said.

The city and Clark County’s “inability to parse who does and doesn’t have immigration status by the services they provide is going to put all of those programs in jeopardy, from transportation to public services, social services,” Murrieta said.

This won’t be the first time the legislation has gone through Congress.

It passed in the House of Representatives in September 2024 with Las Vegas Democratic Reps. Dina Titus and Steven Horsford voting against it. Amodei voted in favor, and Lee was not in Washington due to a “medical emergency involving a loved one in Las Vegas,” according to her spokesperson.

No action was taken in the Senate last year, but Republicans now control the chamber, improving its chances of getting to the president’s desk this time around.

Asked about the legislation, Lee sent a statement to the Sun that “Las Vegas is not a sanctuary city and I don’t believe Gov. (Joe) Lombardo or (Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley) have any interest in making it one.”

The office of U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., told the Sun that it was still reviewing the legislation and that “she will always stand up to keep Nevadans safe.”

Titus says she believes the legislation is a distraction from the real issue: immigration reform. The country needs to secure the border, keep communities safe and create a pathway to citizenship for law-abiding immigrants, she wrote in a statement.

Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, said he believed Congress should not pass the bill.

Looking at Trump’s first month in office — where his administration has cut agencies and spending authorized by Congress — this would be another opportunity for the executive branch to consolidate power, Orozco said.

“This bill ... would give the president a codified legal means to actually withhold funds from cities and states,” he said. “Ideally, members of Congress at this point in time will realize that going to the courts isn’t going to stop President Trump if this bill passes.”

Another problem with the legislation is its constitutionality, Orozco said.

The federal government is sometimes able to condition funding to states to get them to participate in policy, but the withheld funds have to be related to the policy and can’t be overly coercive.

For example, Congress passed legislation in 1984 restricting federal highway funding to states that hadn’t raised their minimum drinking age to 21 years old.

In that case, the restriction was related to road safety and would only result in a 5% decrease in funding, said Laurence Benenson, vice president of policy and advocacy at the National Immigration Forum.

States can be incentivized, but the federal government “can’t say, ‘You lose all this funding,’  ” he said.

“There’s a real question, if it did pass, of whether that would be litigated and whether the Supreme Court might say there’s too much to compel (a) locality to carry out some of these programs,” Benenson said.

Groups like Make the Road Nevada don’t want to get to that point. Members of the organization weren’t afraid to condition their support for politicians they’ve campaigned for in the past on how they handle the next few weeks.

Make the Road Nevada member Luis Navarro took his time at the podium Thursday to speak directly to Cortez Masto, a Latina, who he said “betrayed” Nevada’s immigrant community with her vote on the Laken Riley Act.

“We knocked doors and ensured that all of you, our state and national representatives, had the privilege of representing us,” he said with a crowd behind him. “We are willing to actually go ahead and knock the same doors that put you in your positions of power and get you out of there in the upcoming primaries.”

“Nevada is watching,” Navarro said.