Nevada has not seen the barrage of armed federal officers carrying out immigration enforcement that other cities have seen, but immigration arrests in the state increased drastically last year, with at least 2,155 detained in the first 10 months of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The number of people arrested in immigration enforcement and removal operations under Trump is three times larger than former President Joe Biden’s final year in office in 2024, which saw 634 arrests throughout the state.
The Deportation Data Project, a group of academics and lawyers that collects and shares U.S. government immigration enforcement datasets, has compiled data or arrests nationwide through Oct. 15.
All arrest data was obtained through public information requests and litigation and most likely doesn’t represent the full scale of arrests or deportation efforts.
Roughly 70% of people who were arrested in Nevada had been detained through local jails and detention without any clear indication in the data of what their underlying offenses were, and more than 40% had no criminal convictions or records.
In an email to Nevada Current, Deportation Data Project explained that street-based arrests or “immigration raids,” which are a smaller portion of the numbers of those arrested, can show up in the data as “non-custodial arrest” and “located” categories.
The Current analyzed the data and found 273 “non-custodial” arrests and 326 identified under “located” categories, a 700% and 300% increase respectively from 2024.
In Biden’s final year of office, the project only found 34 “non custodial” arrests and 83 under the “located” categories.
Of those arrested, a large majority — 1,276 people — were from Mexico while 175 people were from Guatemala and 154 were from El Salvador.
Nevada immigrant advocates and civil rights attorneys say there are many unanswered questions about who is being arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But the one thing that is becoming clear is “the story of 2025 was a story of massive increase in ICE arrests,” said Michael Kagan, director of the UNLV Immigration Clinic.
“Just because we don’t have people in armed fatigues walking through East Las Vegas does not mean that ICE has not ramped up considerably,” Kagan said. “ICE is here and is making more arrests than ever.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to numerous requests for comment.
The UNLV Immigration Clinic and the ACLU of Nevada have both struggled to track the full scope of people detained, arrested and deported.
Despite submitting records requested to DHS and local agencies to figure out who is being detained, the numbers “are not typically put out in a very transparent fashion,” said Athar Haseebullah, the executive director of the ACLU of Nevada.
He also doubts federal agencies’ willingness to provide accurate information, adding the administration “is insistent and open to lying.”
The data collected by the Deportation Data Project confirms what the UNLV clinic is seeing through client intakes and calls from the community, Kagan said. People accused — not always convicted — of low-level offenses are being swept up in immigration enforcement and the deportation process.
The data might be incomplete, but it does provide a snapshot of what is happening in Nevada.
“The hard part is because the enforcement actions are often taking place on residential streets and neighborhoods, there’s no way to accurately understand the full gamut of how they’re operating here,” Haseebullah said.
The data analyzed by the Current showed 43% of cases — 934 arrests — were listed as “pending criminal charges” without any indication of what those charges could entail.
“I think it’s really key and important to remind people that an arrest means nothing,” Haseebullah said. “It’s indicative of nothing. You haven’t had your day in court. If we started basing everything off arrests alone, then our system of justice would be useless.”
Trump and White House officials repeatedly claim immigration enforcement is going after the “worst of the worst.”
But from the cases Kagan has seen through the clinic, these arrests are commonly DUIs and other issues like “low level drug offenses” like simple possession.
“You’re not talking about the worst of the worst, as they usually describe it,” he said.
The aggressive immigration enforcement is circumventing the normal criminal justice system and people’s ability to challenge the offenses they are accused of.
“We have clients who have a pending DUI charge and have a very strong account for why they think they are innocent of the DUI,” Kagan said. “I think that the district attorney probably has never heard their version of events, and that’s unfair.”
Another 44% of the cases, 951 arrests, are listed as having a criminal conviction, but again the data doesn’t specify what the conviction was for or how long ago the arrest was.
The category of what could be considered a criminal conviction is too broad, Kagan noted, and doesn’t distinguish between crime like low-level drug possession or a Class-A felony such as murder.
The ambiguity plays on the “rhetoric casting all immigrants as if they are Class-A felons,” he said.
The administration’s implementation of its crackdown “makes no distinction between a homicide conviction and trespass,” Kagan said. “I think to meaningfully talk about this the way normal people would think of it, you’d need to know what kind of crime” the people being arrested have been accused of, “and they don’t provide that data.”
Another lingering question is how old some of these convictions are, Haseebullah said.
There have been cases where people are being swept up on decades-old convictions.
Haseebullah said he was informed of an arrest and a conviction for a DUI that occurred in 1990.
Another 270 cases in the data are categorized as immigration violations. The data doesn’t provide any further information on those violations.
The increased immigration enforcement is not only sweeping more people into deportation, but also created two systems of justice, Kagan said.
For a U.S. citizen, if they are arrested for an offense like DUI or low-level drug possession, they would have their day in court where they are innocent until proven guilty.
Immigrants will never face trial and instead will “just be handed over to ICE.”
The initial arrest “is just the front end of the deportation pipeline,” Kagan said. “We find, anecdotally, with our cases, some of them have no criminal record. Some of our clients and prospective clients were arrested on something like a DUI.”
For those who could be found guilty and convicted of a crime, “they may actually not face the punishment that a citizen would face,” Kagan said.
The system makes ICE a “getaway driver” for cases that could normally carry serious prison time.
The largest number of immigration arrests in Nevada last year — more than 1,500 — were people who were already incarcerated by state and local law enforcement, according to the Deportation Data Project.
Clark County Detention Center accounted for 633 of the arrests through Oct. 15. There were 140 immigration arrests at the jail in 2024.
“That means that basically Las Vegas (Metropolitan Police Department) and other police departments are the front end of the deportation system,” Kagan said.
The data only found one instance of law enforcement complying with 287(g) agreement, by which local authorities help ICE holding people in custody after their release.
LVMPD ended its 287(g) involvement in 2019 but authorized a new agreement in summer 2025. The new agreement is likely not yet reflected in the available data, Haseebullah noted.
Trump’s focus on carrying out more immigration enforcement by detaining and deporting was part of a campaign promise. The Laken Riley Act, which he signed into law during his first month of office and touted as part of his fulfillment of that promise, was a mechanism that critics warned would give the administration more leeway to detain more immigrants by depriving them of their due process rights.
The legislation allowed for undocumented immigrants arrested or charged with crimes like shoplifting, theft and larceny to be detained even if there isn’t a conviction.
Nevada’s entire Democratic delegation voted for the bill despite heavy pushback from immigration attorneys and groups.
Haseebullah said the bill was terrible “namely because it sort of crushed the notion of civil liberties in due process.”
It’s hard to get a full understanding how the act has affected people in Nevada, he said.
The UNLV Immigration Clinic has only successfully litigated one case “to prevent the application of the Laken Riley Act to someone who had been found innocent by a jury,” Kagan said.
The case has been sealed and he was unable to provide further details, except that “DHS pressed forward and wanted to detain them as if they were still guilty.”
If federal agents only relied on the Laken Riley Act to detain more immigrants, “that would have been bad enough,” Haseebullah said.
“It seems almost as if they saw a hurdle in the form of Laken Riley Act and jumped over it,” he said. “Now they just ignore the Fourth Amendment” which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures “and every basic constitutional protection as a whole.”
Kagan agreed that current tactics by federal immigration officials essentially rendered the Laken Riley Act irrelevant.
Instead, the administration is focused on mandatory detention “of basically every undocumented immigrant,” he said.
Though it seems agents have bypassed the federal legislation, Kagan said Democrats should have never voted for the Laken Riley Act.
“I think it does not speak well of an elected official when they can only stand for immigrants, when Gallup polls tell them that the weather is good,” Kagan said. “I think that they would do better to indicate to the public that they stand firm in a position even when the polls run one way or the other.”
Mojave (Nev.) head football coach Wes Pacheco announced on Sunday morning that he’s stepping down from his position, according to a social media post.
Pacheco announced his resignation after six seasons at the helm of the Rattlers, putting together a 29-22 overall record from 2020-2025.
“I have officially stepped down as Head Coach of the Mojave Football Program,” Pacheco said in his social media post. “Thank you to Principal Cole for giving me the opoortunity make an impact on the lives of Mojave Student-Athletes. I am grateful and blessed to have labored through a 6-year journey of successes, failures, life lessons, character building and growth with the student-athletes myself and my coaching staff have served. I will forever love my Mojave Family, the Mojave Community and believe in the notion that SUCCESS can be attained by showcasing character, treating everyone with respect, and always have the courage to dream big and trust that “ATTACKING THE HARD WORK” & “HIGH MOTORING EVERYTHING” can yield SUCCESS that you want to achieve in life!”
During Pacheco’s half dozen seasons leading Mojave, his best record came in the 2024 season when the Rattlers finished with a 12-1 record. Located out of North Las Vegas, Mojave had to compete against the likes of national high school football powerhouse Bishop Gorman during the regular season.
Mojave ended the last season with a 4-6 record and as the state’s No. 23rd ranked team, according to the final 2025 Nevada High School Football Massey Rankings.
Mojave High School, located in North Las Vegas, NV, is a dynamic public high school that fosters academic excellence, personal growth, and community involvement. Home of the Rattlers, MHS offers a wide range of academic programs, athletics, and extracurricular activities. With a strong commitment to student success, Mojave emphasizes leadership, college and career readiness, and a supportive school culture that prepares students for life beyond graduation.
For Nevada high school football fans looking to keep up with scores around the nation, staying updated on the action is now easier than ever with the Rivals High School Scoreboard. This comprehensive resource provides real-time updates and final scores from across the Silver State, ensuring you never miss a moment of the Friday night frenzy. From nail-biting finishes to dominant performances, the Rivals High School Scoreboard is your one-stop destination for tracking all the high school football excitement across Nevada.
A recent Review-Journal letter to the editor mischaracterized Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s Southern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act, also known as the Clark County Lands bill. As the former executive director of the Nevada Conservation League, I wholeheartedly support this legislation, so I wanted to set the record straight.
Sen. Cortez Masto has been working on this bill for years in partnership with state and local governments, conservation groups like the NCL and local area tribes. It’s true that the Clark County lands bill would open 25,000 acres to help Las Vegas grow responsibly, while setting aside 2 million acres for conservation. It would also help create more affordable housing throughout the valley while ensuring our treasured public spaces can be preserved for generations to come.
What is not correct is that the money from these land sales would go to the federal government’s coffers. In fact, the opposite is true.
The 1998 Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act is a landmark bill that identified specific public land for future sale and created a special account ensuring all land sale revenues would come back to Nevada. In accordance with that law 5 percent of revenue from land transfers goes to the state of Nevada for general education purposes, 10 percent goes to the Southern Nevada Water Authority for needed water infrastructure and 85 percent supports conservation and environmental mitigation projects in Southern Nevada. This legislation has provided billions to Clark County and will continue to benefit generations of Southern Nevadans. Sen. Cortez Masto’s lands bill builds upon the act’s success.
So here’s the good news: All of the money generated from land made available for sale under Sen. Cortez Masto’s bill would be sent to the special account created by the 1998 law. Rather than going to an unaccountable federal government, the proceeds would continue to help kids in Vegas get a better education, bolster outdoor recreation and modernize Southern Nevada’s infrastructure.
I know how important it is that money generated from the sale of public land in Nevada stay in the hands of Nevadans, and so does the senator. That’s why she opposed a Republican effort last year to sell off 200,000 acres of land in Clark County and other areas of the country that would have sent those dollars directly to Washington.
Public land management in Nevada should benefit Nevadans. We should protect sacred cultural sites and beloved recreation spaces, responsibly transfer land for affordable housing when needed and ensure our state has the resources it needs to grow sustainably. I will continue working with Sen. Cortez Masto to advocate for legislation, such as the Clark County lands bill, that puts the needs of Nevadans first.
Paul Selberg writes from Las Vegas.
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Las Vegas High’s baseball team claimed a 3-2 home win over Coronado on Friday.
Las Vegas (9-13-1) next hosts Rancho at 10 a.m. Saturday. Coronado (13-14) hosts Chaparral at 3:30 p.m. Monday.
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.
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