What's the latest as Trump's immigration crackdown expands?

From Nevada Public Radio, I'm Paul Boger. This is State of Nevada. The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada announced last week that it filed a lawsuit against the State Department of Motor Vehicles for failing to disclose public records related to potential collaboration with federal immigration officers. This week, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford announced that he's joined a coalition of attorneys general from 20 states asking a federal judge to stop the U.S. Department of Justice from withholding federal funds earmarked for crime victims if states don't cooperate with the Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts. All of that comes while the Trump administration itself has taken steps to dramatically increase enforcement and deportation efforts across the country. Joining me now to talk about the latest in how the Trump administration's immigration crackdown has so far played out in Nevada is Isabella Aldrete, a reporter for the Nevada Independent, and Ricardo Torres-Cortez with the Las Vegas Review Journal. Bella, Ricardo, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedules of chat. No problem. Of course. Bella, let's talk about the lawsuit. At a press conference, the ACLU of Nevada Executive Director Atar Hazibula laid out their basic arguments. Can you do me a favor? Can you break it down for me? What is the ACLU suing over? So, in the lawsuit, the ACLU said the DMV has repeatedly failed to turn over correspondence between the DMV and communication with ICE. Since February, the ACLU sent a formal demand letter through the Nevada Attorney's General's Office, asking them to turn over any correspondence they had. And while they did turn over some of those documents, most of them were redacted and incomplete. So why is the DMV working with Federal Immigration Enforcement? Yeah, it's not exactly clear-cut if they are collaborating with them, but exhibits from the lawsuit do show email exchanges between the DMV and ICE, where ICE is asking for the names, dates of birth, and driver license numbers of free individuals they were looking for. And the exhibits also allude to a chat on signal. That's an encrypted messaging platform that's known for its enhanced security. The DMV said that they don't use signal and they haven't used those chats for any official purposes, but there are allusions to them in emails between ICE and the DMV, and that's something the ACLU is looking into. Have you heard from the DMV or the governor at all? Have they spoken out about this? Both the DMV and the governor's office told the Nevada Independent they could not respond to comment, as it's related to ongoing litigation. So we're not quite sure where things stand with them so far. As I mentioned at the top, the Attorney General Aaron Ford announced this week that he has joined a coalition of states, Attorney General, in asking a federal judge to stop the U.S. Department of Justice from withholding federal funds earmarked for crime victims in states that don't cooperate with the Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts. Bella, it's the latest legal effort to halt these enforcement efforts. What is the Attorney General trying to do here? Those funds come from something called the Victims of Crime Act, and those funds provide more than a billion dollars annually throughout the nation for victim compensation programs and grants. In Nevada, those funds have made a big difference. More than 24 million dollars were allocated last year to a variety of domestic violence and family violence organizations. But if the Trump administration orders go through, that may threaten some of those programs and their longevity, especially in light of Nevada being labeled a sanctuary state. The Attorney General has filed a number of legal actions against the Trump administration over the last eight months. Do we know how many have dealt with immigration specifically? Right. That's actually something I'm looking into right now for an upcoming story, so I might be able to get those numbers for you soon, but we do know that Aaron Ford has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration, particularly on the immigration front. He filed lawsuit against the Trump administration's birthright citizenship order, which had a nationwide injunction, and he's hosted multiple Know Your Rights workshops where the state's undocumented community as well. Conversely, Governor Lombardo has signed off on the use of the Nevada National Guard to assist with federal immigration enforcement. What does that look like? What is the Nevada National Guard going to be doing? Governor Joe Lombardo's team has told us that the National Guard will only be assisting in an administrative and logistical capacity. About 35 guardsmen are supposed to be assisting with those efforts, and that represents less than 1% of Nevada's total National Guard, and those people are volunteers. The order is under something known as Title 32, which means that Governor Joe Lombardo did offer us the order, but the mission will be completely supported by federal funds. So there's been a lot of concerns in recent months that immigration enforcement was going to take up state dollars, but in terms of this National Guard mission, this will not be an issue. We're talking about how the Trump administration's immigration crackdown is playing out Nevada with Bella Aldrete, a reporter for the Nevada Independent, and Ricardo Torres Cortez with the Las Vegas Review Journal. Ricardo, a private group called CoreCivic is operating a detention center in southern Nevada in Paramp. According to reporting from the Washington Post, ICE may double the capacity at that facility by the end of the year. This was originally floated as an idea from the Nevada Republican Party. They are looking for their own version of what Florida has, that alligator Alcatraz. First off, tell me about this center that's in Paramp. What's going on there? The Nevada Southern Detention Center is a private prison that holds federal prisoners, U.S. marshals, detainees, and has space for ICE detainees. Under reporting from the Washington Post, which obtained internal documentation, if a contract goes through, the detention center would add sort of like a mega tent that would hold 450 ICE detainees. There's already capacity at the center for 422 detainees. So at this point, how concrete are these plans? The Department of Homeland Security hasn't confirmed whether the contract has occurred. They sort of deferred comment. The Washington Post did note that it's an ongoing process with like a fluid plan that could change. It wasn't clear if a contract has been issued or if it has been processed. Now we've seen both state and federal Democratic lawmakers try to visit the center. What are we hearing from them? Congressman Horsford tried to visit the center three weeks ago. He was turned away by the prison warden, told him he didn't have permission, even though the Congressman said that he had provided a week's notice. Federal government, Department of Homeland Security is alleging that the congressional people who have authority to make visits unannounced have to provide prior notice. The number has changed. First, they said three days, and now they're suggesting a week. So the Congressman organized another visit, and he was down there this week. He said he spoke to 90 detainees who alleged that there'd been delays to health care needs and improper access to legal representation. In that same vein, we have seen almost every law enforcement agency in the state enter into or in some cases expand its level of cooperation with ICE. Can you explain what those relationships look like? What are police responsible for when it comes to holding undocumented immigrants? It's called the 287G agreement, which is a formal agreement with ICE to let the agency know when there's an undocumented person booked at the jail accused on a number of crimes. The list was expanded under the Lake and Riley Act to include death-related accusations. They'll let ICE know that they're there. The 287G agreement allows the jail staff to hold those inmates up to two more days after they're set to be released to be picked up by ICE. Currently in Nevada, four counties have entered into the agreement, but only at the jail. There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks about the lackluster number of visitors coming to Nevada this year. There are some who argue that the president's immigration crackdown is having a chilling effect on the economy. We saw that play out at Broadacres, the North Las Vegas Swatmeet, popular with the Valley's Latino community. They were back in business earlier this month after shutting their doors in June. The operator cited fear over possible immigration enforcement as the reason for the closure. ICE says they haven't had any officers at the market, but we have seen immigration raids at similar markets in other states. Ricardo, have we seen ICE target businesses popular with the Latino community in Las Vegas? From businesses we've talked to and vendors at the Swatmeet, at the Mega Swatmeet, they haven't reported ICE activity there, but they have cited the fear. The market, which is based in North Las Vegas, shut its doors. It was three days after Border Patrol agents did an operation at a Swatmeet in Southern California. No one really confirmed that was the case for the closure, but the Border Patrol did publicize that operation agents in military garb going into that Swatmeet. Prior to that, vendors and customers, the traffic at the Swatmeet had declined, and some officials have cited immigration enforcement fears. Bella, the Department of Homeland Security recently labeled Nevada as one of about a dozen states that are considered immigration sanctuaries. However, it didn't list a reason behind that decision, nor did it list a single jurisdiction within Nevada as being a "sanctuary city" like we saw with the other states on that list. Do we know why Nevada was listed as a sanctuary state? Yeah, the reason is not very clear. When the Nevada Independent asked, the DOJ did not provide any additional reasoning and just linked to a press release, and even Governor Joe Lombardo seemed to be taken by surprise. On Twitter, he posted that he reached out to the DOJ for additional clarification and hadn't heard back himself shortly after that designation. I think it's also important to note that the term "sanctuary jurisdiction" has no legal definition and it's pretty political charge, so it's taken on several different meanings throughout this debate about immigration enforcement. However, the DOJ did have some characteristics on their list, and those include limiting cooperation with ICE and their access to jails, and restrictions on immigration information sharing with federal authorities. Nevada has no laws prohibiting collaboration with ICE, however, it does have a dedicated state office to help new immigrants. The DOJ list did say that was a criteria for being a sanctuary state. So what does that label mean for Nevada? Yeah, the label could have pretty big ramifications in Nevada, especially considering that Nevada is one of the states with the highest shares of undocumented people, some 200,000 undocumented people live here. An executive order from April said that so-called sanctuary jurisdictions may be subject to the revocation of federal grants. This is something we talked about regarding the Aaron Ford lawsuit, and the DOJ also said if non-compliant they may take any means necessary to ensure that they revoke their sanctuary laws. I believe we all had a role in covering the 2024 presidential election. I know that we heard from then candidate Trump talked about conducting the largest deportation effort in history, but he also promised that his administration would target violent offenders. At this point, the administration has been in office for eight months. Bella, I know the Indians had some data on this. Are violent offenders the ones who are being detained by ICE? An Indian analysis of ICE data found that more than 70% of the people arrested in Nevada under the Trump administration who had criminal convictions were not committed of a violent crime or sex crime. Most of those people and their worst defenses were DUIs or were listed in the other category. In some regards though, Nevada is a bit different from some of the other states with increased immigration enforcement. In total, 15% though of the people arrested by ICE in Nevada had no criminal history. That rate is much lower than some other states like New York, where nearly 50% of people arrested by ICE had no criminal history at all. You're both covering this on a day-to-day basis. Ricardo, how dramatic has this shift in immigration enforcement been in Nevada since the Trump administration took over in January? It's substantial. A lot of fear, I suspect. First of all, there's not much public information being released by the federal government about their operations and reporting on the issue, I've encountered people who are scared to talk or share their name. So it's become difficult to outline the issue fully and give it a personal touch. Bella, what are you hearing from your sources? What are you hearing from people in the field? Yeah, people are quite nervous. Across the swamp meet, broad acres, we've heard people are not coming back to work. I think also with back to school starting, we've also seen a lot of trepidation about what that can mean for the kids, undocumented people. Over on the community, I think we're seeing a lot of hesitation and fear about immigration enforcement. As somebody who is following this, what are you expecting to see in the next few months before the end of the year? Previously, at least the Clark County Sheriff had expressed that the operations had been tempered down based on resources of ICE agents available with the planned new hiring of thousands of new ICE agents. I can't foresee things, but I imagine operations could ramp up. Bella, Ricardo, thank you so much. Thank you. Take care. Thanks. Have a nice one. This has been KNPR's State of Nevada. It's produced in Las Vegas by Nevada Public Radio. You can support thoughtful and engaging conversations just like these about issues that matter most to you by becoming a member at knpr.org. Also for the latest news and updates, follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Blue Sky at Nevada Public Radio. You can also get in touch with us by sending us an email to [email protected]. I'm Paul Boger. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time. (soft music)