Electeds face quandary as Trump militarizes deportations, expands dragnet

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 09: National Guard stand guard at the Robert Young Federal Building on June 9, 2025 in Downtown Los Angeles, California. Tensions in the city remained high after the Trump administration called in the National Guard against the wishes of city leaders. (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)

With his goal of deporting 1 million undocumented immigrants a year appearing elusive, President Donald Trump, who pledged to rid America of the “worst of the worst,” is revising his game plan in favor of sweeping, untargeted apprehension efforts that are likely to ensnare so-called ‘low-hanging fruit’ – immigrants with no criminal background who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Over the weekend, the presence of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents staged outside a Home Depot store in Los Angeles ignited protests from individuals angered at the indiscriminate effort to apprehend immigrants who were there seeking work. 

In response, Trump nationalized 2,000 California National Guard troops, a move condemned by Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. On Monday, the military said 700 marines would be added to the force, the New York Times reported. 

“They’re essentially fishing with a net and not giving a shit about what they catch,” New York immigration attorney Michael Catallioti said during a phone interview about the Trump administration’s reported efforts to boost arrests to 3,000 a day. “They are quite literally dredging. And whatever you get, you get, and maybe you throw out a couple things that shouldn’t have been caught. But they’re not even really doing that so much.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reports it apprehended 66,463 immigrants, an average of 664 a day, in Trump’s first 100 days in office. The effort has been marred by a lack of detention beds. Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill adds almost $1 trillion toward the effort, reports the Cato Institute.

Some experts suggest Trump is exacting revenge on California, a blue state, in the same manner he’s cut funding to Harvard for failing to cleanse its curriculum and curb First Amendment expression to his satisfaction; extorted legal services from law firms that represent interests to which he’s opposed; and persuaded TV networks in his disfavor to pay multi-million dollar settlements or face regulatory consequences.  

Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo did not respond when asked whether he approves of Trump’s activation of the National Guard in California, or the administration’s deportation tactics in Nevada, such as conducting warrantless arrests and ambushing individuals attending immigration hearings. 

In the past, Lombardo has waffled when asked whether he would deploy Nevada’s National Guard to assist with deportations. 

On Monday, Lombardo announced his veto of legislation that would have limited the access of immigration officials to school grounds and records without a court order or warrant. The measure was intended to give students peace of mind in the classroom that their personal information would not be used to separate family members. 

Leo Murietta, executive director of Make the Road Action Nevada, an immigration advocacy organization, said in a statement Lombardo is “more committed to appeasing the far-right and echoing Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda than he is to protecting children in Nevada’s schools.”

Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill, who has repeatedly said it’s not his job to assist with deportations, has since relented. Last week, McMahill confirmed the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Dept. intends to rejoin ICE’s controversial 287(g) program, in which police departments cooperate by holding undocumented immigrants for 48 hours following their scheduled release to allow federal agents to take custody. 

Metro suspended the program in 2019 after a U.S. District Court ruled that ICE detainers violate the Fourth Amendment by allowing warrantless arrests absent probable cause. 

McMahill did not respond to inquiries from the Current about the reason behind the change of policy, but in an interview with KLAS-TV, said he doesn’t want immigrant offenders “in my community anymore.  We had child pornographers being released; folks that had shot people being released.” 

“The sheriff said some fairly ugly things – smearing immigrants with incredibly heinous crimes that are fortunately relatively rare,” said Michael Kagan, director of UNLV’s Immigration Clinic. “I think that there are a lot of reasons not to take that seriously.”

Most of the defendants caught up in the 287(g) program are likely to be low-level offenders, for crimes such as driving under the influence, Kagan suggests, adding the sheriff could limit cooperation with ICE to exclude low-level offenders.  

Meanwhile, deporting serious offenders renders ICE as the “getaway driver” for high-level offenders who will escape accountability for their offenses, Kagan says.

Others contend McMahill’s about-face is a reaction to Trump’s repeated threats to cut federal funding for jurisdictions that fail to comply with deportation efforts. 

“Maybe everyone is concerned about losing federal dollars,” said Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom. 

A report from the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities says Nevada relied on federal funding for about 28% of its $53.4 billion budget in the last biennium, most of it Medicaid matching funds.

In late April, Trump signed an executive order threatening cuts to federal funding for local jurisdictions that fail to assist with immigration enforcement. Days earlier, a federal judge in San Francisco issued an injunction prohibiting Trump from withholding funds that are unrelated to so-called “sanctuary” policies, which have no legal definition, but are defined by the Trump administration as efforts that deliberately obstruct immigration enforcement.

A list of sanctuary jurisdictions distributed by DHS in late May included Las Vegas. DHS removed the list days later following backlash from the named cities and counties.

“Lombardo and McMahill are capitulating to an agenda of hate,” said Bliss Requa-Trautz, executive director of Arriba Las Vegas Workers Center, which assists workers with immigration and employment issues.“This is not about law enforcement. This is about repression.” 

The threatened loss of funds, she says, is being used by Trump “to manipulate our state and local officials into implementing the federal deportation agenda.”

Requa-Trautz says Metro’s application to revive its 287(g) designation is also a public relations move to “get away from the sanctuary city accusation, which is totally false,” and keep ICE activity from the public’s view and off the minds of tourists. 

“If they actually implement the full Trump agenda as planned, we’re going to be leading boycotts of the Strip, because it’s not safe to come here,” says Requa-Trautz. Stepped-up ICE raids in Nevada could “start contributing to the fears of visitors if we don’t have a community that is safe for those who live and work and vacation here.” 

Real ID requirements for air travelers could also cut into tourism, she says, adding immigrants, documented and undocumented, who regularly fly have been grounded. “People took their last trips in April, and they are done flying.”

Catallioti, the New York immigration attorney who represents professionals in a variety of fields, including entertainment and sports, says immigration arrests “have spooked a lot of folks who would otherwise be quite confident” about travelling to the U.S., a factor that could complicate entertainment and sports attractions on the Strip.

Scared silent?

Until recently, ICE enforcement in Southern Nevada has been targeted, Requa-Trautz says, but the targets, for the most part, are far from dangerous criminals. The methods employed by ICE to apprehend them, she says, such as masked men in unmarked vehicles plucking individuals off the streets, are fraught with peril. “In a state like Nevada, someone could get shot,” she said.

“In a heavily armed country, something can go really wrong,” said Kagan.

Kagan affords Lombardo, a Republican, a little grace on the topic, given the state has no role in the immigration actions taken by federal authorities.

“I’m not sure that Lombardo wants to be fully in bed with the Trump immigration agenda, particularly if it starts leading to roundups of people who don’t have criminal records who are going to court,” said Kagan. “I don’t think he wants to speak about it either.”

The silence from Democrats, he says, “is deafening. This is a missed opportunity, morally and politically, for Democrats. They have been afraid of the issue for the wrong reasons for too long, and that’s a serious failure of leadership.”

Kagan suggests Democrats “have felt lost on the issue of immigration for a while, and the election scared some of them into silence. You can see that in our own delegation.” 

U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford, a Democrat from Southern Nevada, says he’s “very concerned” about ICE tactics under Trump, such as “agents who were not in uniform, who were in unmarked cars, who were wearing masks, who literally have not been identifying themselves at these raid incidents.That is not making our community safer in any regard.”

Nevada’s U.S. senators have also voiced opposition to several policies.

In April, Nevada Democratic U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was one of 19 senators to urge Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to reinstate temporary protected status (TPS) to some 350,000 Venezuelans. Congress, she and the others wrote to Noem and Rubio, “intended TPS to be both a humanitarian tool and a pragmatic response to unstable conditions abroad.” 

“This administration should be focused on targeting violent criminals, not on using their resources to intimidate hardworking immigrant families,” Cortez Masto said in a statement to the Current. 

Cortez Masto and U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) say they’ve been denied deportation data.

“Our office has not received any data from ICE or DHS regarding deportations, which is in line with the Trump Administration’s unprecedented lack of transparency,” said a spokesperson for Rosen. 

Rosen opposes “deportation efforts targeting law-abiding individuals, and she’s against immigration enforcement in sensitive locations that are meant to intimidate and scare immigrant communities.”

Cortez Masto and Rosen are supporting a bill that would prevent immigration raids at “sensitive areas” such as schools, hospitals and places of worship. Trump rescinded those protections when he took office. 

In the last month, ICE has begun apprehending individuals at immigration hearings, which are not included among the named sensitive locations. 

Last week, Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) joined House colleagues who signed on to a letter to Noem and Rubio complaining the policy, “designed to meet an arbitrary quota of deportations, is not targeting criminals — the ‘worst of the worst’ as administration officials have repeatedly claimed — but instead is surreptitiously and deceptively aimed at those who are following the rules, voluntarily appearing in court, and doing it the right way.” 

The letter was not signed by Horsford or Rep. Susie Lee, the only Democrat in the Nevada delegation who did not respond to requests for comment. 

Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s tactics continue to put migrants who are trying to work within the legal system in a frightening quandary. Immigrants who do not appear for hearings can be deported in absentia, creating a dilemma –  appear and be taken into custody, or face the consequences for failing to appear. 

“An attorney could not tell you not to go to a hearing,” says Requa-Trautz of Arriba Workers Center. “And an attorney cannot tell you that you will walk out of there.”