‘Catastrophic’: Experts warn mass deportations could cause Nevada economic fallout

Deportations ordered by President Donald Trump could hinder Nevada’s economic growth and worsen the state’s housing crisis, experts say.

In his successful presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to enact the largest deportation program in U.S. history — from deporting criminals to using the Alien Enemies Act to remove undocumented migrants.

Yet one month into the president’s second term, it’s unclear to what extent deportations are occurring in Nevada. Immigration and Customs Enforcement publishes its arrests in major cities like San Antonio, Denver and San Diego. But Las Vegas — and Nevada as a whole — is not mentioned.

ICE officials declined to provide information on its activities in Nevada, including whether increased deportations have begun, when they could start, how many people they’ve placed in deportation proceedings since Trump took office and whether they will or are working with any state agencies. The White House also did not respond to those questions.

Though uncertainty remains about deportation plans, experts caution that deportation of Nevada’s undocumented immigrants could spell trouble for the Silver State.

‘Essential workers’

According to Pew Research estimates from 2022, 190,000 undocumented immigrants live in Nevada, or about 5.8 percent of the state’s population, making up 8.6 percent of the state’s workforce.

Understanding where all they work is harder to know; employers are unlikely to admit they hire people without documentation, according to Frederick Steinmann, director of the University Center for Economic Development at University of Nevada, Reno.

But Nevada’s workforce has always been transient, and the state’s advanced manufacturing, agriculture, tourism and hospitality industries have always depended upon a migratory workforce, Steinmann said.

Undocumented workers can be found in many roles — as street vendors, construction workers, teachers, doctors, nurses, grocers and those that pick produce in the fields, said Erika Marquez, immigrant justice organizer with Make the Road Nevada.

“The undocumented community is big in itself, and they are the essential workers,” Marquez said. “They are what makes Nevada, Nevada.”

Peter Guzman, president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce, said it would be difficult for him to pinpoint specific industries that benefit from an undocumented workforce.

“What I can say is the immigrant population is woven into every part of our fabric in our community,” he said.

The immigrant Hispanic community is “vibrant, entrepreneurial, and the majority are just hardworking folks,” he said.

‘Domino effect’

Mass deportations would cause a “domino effect,” said Executive Secretary-Treasurer Susie Martinez of the Nevada State AFL-CIO, an umbrella labor federation that represents 120 unions in the state and roughly 150,000 workers.

“This will affect the whole community, regardless of who you are or where you come from,” Martinez said.

That said, Martinez said AFL-CIO doesn’t know how many undocumented workers are in the unions’ ranks because it’s never come up as an issue.

“I know that there are some,” the former Nevada assemblywoman said. “Fortunately, in our state, we have the jobs and people are working them.”

Industries like hospitality, construction and agriculture rely on those workers’ skills, Martinez said. If they’re removed, “that would definitely hurt the businesses.”

Business could struggle to meet demands or fill positions, leading to price increases and slowing the economy, she said.

She worries deportations would “create hostile work environments” in which workers stop showing up and stop sending their children to school out of fear. It would also affect their documented counterparts, she added.

“Instead of mass deportations, they should focus on policies that protect workers,” Martinez said.

Mass deportations would bring “nothing but havoc for our communities,” she said. “It’s very disheartening to see that.”

Stemming the flow of workers

Given the importance of an in-flow of workers into Nevada in all industries, any effort to stem immigration would damage the state’s economy, according to Steinmann.

“Without that migratory workforce, a lot of individual firms across many sectors would just be unable to maintain and grow their operations,” he said.

Nevada’s workforce is getting tighter, with fewer people available to fill vacant positions, let alone new positions that are going to be created through economic growth, Steinmann said.

“When you start to develop and implement policies that in any way would reduce the flow of that workforce, you’re just adding another tightening element along an already very tight labor market,” he said.

Systems have been put in place to ensure the majority of the state’s workforce is in the state legally, Steinmann said. He is more concerned about a chilling effect the federal initiative to curb undocumented immigration could have on legal immigration, which would further tighten the labor market, he said.

Less tax revenue, increased costs on goods

More than 1 in 3 migrants in Nevada are Mexican nationals, according to estimates from the American Immigration Council, a pro-immigration nonprofit.

Overall, the Latino community contributes about $21 billion a year to the Nevada economy and between $2 trillion to $3 trillion across the U.S., according to Guzman.

“I don’t think that our economy could handle it if every immigrant was to be deported today,” he said. “I believe it would have a catastrophic impact in our economy.”

Undocumented immigrants also pay federal, state and local taxes.

In 2022, migrants in the U.S. with no legal status contributed an average of nearly $9,000 each on local, state and federal taxes, amounting to nearly $100 billion, according to a 2024 report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Those taxes go toward programs undocumented migrants can’t access, including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance, according to the think tank.

Mass deportation would greatly reduce the production of goods and services in the economy, said David Bier, director of immigration studies at Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

The cost of those goods and services would increase because so much production is dependent on workers with non-legal statuses or temporary statuses, Bier said.

“It’s not unreasonable to think that you could be deporting 4 or 5 million people over four years, which would be a significant reduction in the labor supply,” Bier said.

As more workers are removed, there will be an occupational downgrading in the workforce. American workers will have to do the lower-paying work that immigrants are doing now, Bier said. It may result in a lower labor force participation among Americans.

If there are significantly fewer people spending on goods at supermarkets and stores, that could impact the state’s tax base, but that depends on the magnitude, said Nicholas Irwin, a UNLV associate professor of economics and research director at the Lied Center for Real Estate.

With migrant workers making up a large percentage of produce pickers, there is potential for higher prices to hit groceries, he said.

Impact to Nevada’s housing crisis

Mass deportation plans could have significant effects on the state’s ability to build more housing, Irwin said.

“Any time you shrink the number of construction crews, you sort of decrease our supply so they can bid up their prices, so it’s going to make it more expensive,” he said.

If workers are deported, their families who might be here legally may also follow them, which could free up some houses for others and affect the housing market, Irwin said.

That is a zero-sum game, Irwin said. It might slightly improve affordability in the short-term depending on how many people leave their houses, but the housing market is already tight, he said.

“Unless we’re talking about large numbers of people, I don’t necessarily think there’s going to be any big impact in that residential sector in terms of affordability,” Irwin said.

Bier said in a longer-term time frame, property values could lower as well as the housing market because there will be fewer people looking for homes. In the short-term, the disruption on the labor force in construction could impact new home construction, worsening the state’s housing crisis, he said.

Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com and Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.