When the U.S.

Department of Justice included Nevada on its list of sanctuary states, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo quickly denied that designation.

In a statement, his office said in part, quote, The state has repeatedly reached out to the Department of Justice for clarification on its designation and looks forward to their timely response.

Less than two months later, Nevada became the first state to be taken off that list after reaching a memorandum of understanding with the DOJ to, quote, fully collaborate on immigration enforcement.

So what does that look like, especially in a state with such a large share of undocumented people?

For that we bring in Isabella Aldrete, Reporter at The Nevada Independent; and Athar Haseebullah, Executive Director of the nonpartisan American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.

Thank you both for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you.

-Isabella, I'd like to start with you.

This MOU with the DOJ, what changes as a result of it?

(Isabella Aldrete) Yeah.

Probably the most significant change we're seeing as a result of that MOU is that Republican Governor Joe Lombardo essentially agreed to try and counteract any policies from the democratically held legislature or from Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford that the Trump administration deems to be unlawful sanctuary policies.

Beyond that, it notes that Lombardo has authorized the state's National Guard to assist with ICE's administrative duties.

It also commits to using FEMA funding for border control and enforcement.

Washoe County and Clark County are now going to use some of their funding, that's those FEMA funds, for immigration enforcement.

-So Athar, the MOU that we're talking about, have you read it?

-I have.

-It has several examples of how the governor has already taken action to prove his argument that Nevada is not a sanctuary state.

One of those is that the governor talked with Sheriff Kevin McMahill of Metro, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, in June; and after that, Metro decided to rejoin ICE's 287(g) program.

What is that program, and why does the ACLU of Nevada believe that it's illegal?

(Athar Haseebullah) Yeah.

Thanks for having us on.

So 287(g) is a subsection of Federal immigration law that effectively allows for cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and ICE.

Notably, there's multiple models for this that have been deployed all across the country, and the model that LVMPD had decided to enter into effectively would would have them reporting over to ICE individuals that are within their custody, but ICE would be able to request a hold for those individuals for a period of time in order for ICE to come in and pick those individuals up.

What's really notable about the signing of Metro's agreement is the timing by which they did it.

And as I've mentioned a number of times, there is no clear definition of a sanctuary state or sanctuary city.

This is a term that gets thrown around anytime somebody seems like they're pro-immigrant or anti-- profiling, anti due process in these instances, as I mentioned.

We have this broad term the administration likes to throw out, and they've done this over and over.

-They have provided a list of examples of what a sanctuary jurisdiction might be.

-That's their-- That's this administration's version of that, and that's not even a common term of art.

There's no legally cognizant term of art that's universally recognized.

And so when they say these are all the sanctuary policies that could end up existing, it's problematic.

So Metro ends up signing this agreement, and we know or we can at least perceive why that's the case.

When you label Las Vegas a sanctuary city, which it's not-- Even if it were to come to a universal definition for what a sanctuary city would look like, I don't think Las Vegas would fall within that definition.

But they add Las Vegas as a jurisdiction to that, and within days, Metro has signed a 287(g) agreement.

And I recognize the challenges that this sort of designation places the sheriff in, that places Metro in, and the city of Las Vegas, right?

It's a coercion tactic.

Anytime the administration wants to force compliance, they're going to label a municipality or state a sanctuary jurisdiction.

-But why is it illegal?

-Because the legislature has not authorized Metro to enter into this type of agreement.

Now, the notable part about these types of agreements is they're still subject to state law.

And LVMPD is not a federal agency.

They fall under the auspices of state law.

They're only permitted to do what they're empowered to do by the legislature.

They've never received the power to enter into a 287(g) agreement, especially one where the agreement actually lists them as bearing the costs instead of the federal government.

And so these types of issues are problematic.

If they want to do this, they should go to the legislature and seek approval to be able to enter into these types of agreements.

-To Sheriff Kevin McMahill's defense, he emphasized to News 3 that his decision to enter into this agreement was not influenced by Las Vegas being listed as a sanctuary jurisdiction.

He said, quote, The reason I did that, quite frankly, I was seeing too many people with very heinous crimes getting out of our jail.

He cited repeated offenses, including DUIs and domestic violence, as a driving factor for the policy change.

So that's what's happening here in Las Vegas.

Isabella, can you tell me how other jurisdictions within the state are working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement?

-Yeah.

So there's many different types of 287(g) agreements.

In Lyon County, we see a model of the 287(g) agreement called the Jail Enforcement Model, at least according to the DHS website.

And that model is a little different than the policy that Metro has as it lets certain police officers interrogate people in jails about their immigration status versus while in Clark County, we can just hold people in detention for a bit longer so ICE can pick them up.

And that's a bit more of a stringent model we see playing out in Lyon County.

So then, Athar, will the ACLU of Nevada be pursuing a lawsuit against Lyon County for its agreement with ICE?

-It depends.

Unfortunately, that's the reality for most good legal answers, I guess in this era, is it depends.

And part of the challenge that we end up experiencing is that, yes, there may be these policies out there.

We'll have to see someone who's actually harmed by the policy first in order for us to proceed with a legal challenge, which is often the case.

There's an important piece of this called "standing," right?

And we don't always have standing to be able to just go in ourselves as an organization and say, you know, we think this is wrong.

We think this is unlawful, so we're challenging it based on that.

-Well, that brings up a good point.

With this current case with Metro, who is the person that you believe has been harmed?

-Yeah.

So our-- We have actually a client in this, is being severely harmed.

This is an individual that we represent who was actually ordered as a part of an adjudication within Clark County District Court here to go to treatment.

And after Metro had signed their 287(g) agreement, there ends up being a hold on this individual.

So there's an ICE hold on him within, effectively, within the Clark County Detention Center.

So on one hand, they're not releasing him into treatment because of this ICE hold.

On the other hand, he's not been released into ICE custody because there's a state court order that's in place.

So he's been at the Clark County Detention Center for more than a month and a half, I believe, now.

And we were advised by a social worker that was involved in the underlying, sort of, disposition to go to treatment that he's not being released into treatment court because of that ICE hold.

So it actually demonstrates the complexities that are involved here.

Part of the reason why we say this is a Dillon's Rule issue and why Metro and any other jurisdiction needed to go to the legislature to seek approval here was because these issues have not been flushed out.

So in an incident like this, you have somebody who could technically end up being there indefinitely.

What I will say also about our case is that, you know, if we're successful here, it does have a potential statewide impact, because it brings up and raises questions about other jurisdictions that have entered into a 287(g) agreement.

Our organization's position is we're not going to leave this to the legislature or the governor to just attempt to, you know, figure out what they think here.

The legislature could have made clear for all of these years that these local law enforcement agencies had the power to do this, and they didn't do so.

From our vantage point, that means that this agreement's unlawful with Metro.

It probably means the other ones are as well.

-And for our viewers, unaware of what the Dillon's law precedent is, will you explain that?

-Yes, sure.

So Dillon's Rule effectively prescribes that that power that is to be held by local governments needs to be explicated or explicitly provided by the state government.

There's also the concept of implied powers that occur there if the legislature has given local law enforcement the ability to act in that fashion.

That's not been the case here.

And in fact, Metro, a few years ago, actually was going to move forward with their 287(g) agreement when Governor Lombardo was still the sheriff.

And actually, upon receiving notification from the ACLU of a potential lawsuit there, they withdrew.

And so the next time that this comes up with LVMPD is just a couple months ago.

-Metro, for its part, says it does not comment on pending litigation.

-They're smart.

-Isabella, you have done some analysis of federal immigration data.

Can you tell us what you have found as it relates to Nevada?

-Yeah.

From our analysis, during the first six months of the Trump administration, immigration arrests have nearly quadrupled.

Although a large percent of the people who have been arrested in the past six months do have some sort of criminal history, nearly 70% have not been convicted of a sex crime or a violent offense.

And about 16% have been convicted of some sort of traffic offense, such as a DUI.

But it does-- Largely, the data seems to kind of counteract this narrative that the Trump administration is arresting the worst of the worst.

-Okay.

And you have profiled someone who fits that example.

And his daughter, in particular, is who you've been speaking with, Diana Lopez.

What happened with her father?

-Yeah.

So Diana sent this video footage of her father, Rafael Lopez-Gomez, being arrested by ICE while he was collecting his mail at what appears to be gunpoint.

Although the video is a bit hazy-- -We do have that video, and it's from a doorbell camera.

-Yes, it is.

And during the days following his arrest, communication with her father became rather scarce and, ultimately, it dropped off.

About a week later, she found her dad hospitalized, swollen, handcuffed to the bed, and essentially unable to breathe well.

He had no prior medical conditions that the family knew of, and Diana said that this raised a lot of the issues about how ICE treats their detainees and transparency about detainees' whereabouts.

-And she got together with a group of advocates, and they marched down Las Vegas Boulevard to the ICE building near the federal courthouse to try and deliver a petition to get her father out.

ICE says, "Rafael Lopez-Gomez, 56 years old, an illegal alien from Mexico, was arrested by ICE September 18 and held in detention at the Henderson Detention Center, Henderson, Nevada, pending his removal from the United States.

An immigration judge ordered Lopez removed in 2004.

And rather than taking time to depart the U.S., he was convicted instead of receiving stolen property in 2023.

Lopez received care at the Henderson Hospital, Henderson, Nevada, for chest pains.

He was evaluated and released."

Athar, what issue does the ACLU of Nevada have with this particular case?

I mean, he already had a pending order of removal, and he did commit a crime that was a misdemeanor.

-In this particular instance, probably the most notable problem was you see individuals jump out of the vehicle, we don't see anybody identifying themselves on a vehicle, and draw what either appears to be a firearm or taser, and bringing him into custody.

This is an individual that didn't do anything violent outside of his house.

He wasn't running, anything else of the sort.

And had that body camera footage-- or sorry, the ring camera or doorbell camera footage not existed, they would have said they were the sweetest people to him despite the fact that they pulled either a firearm or a taser on him.

This is kind of a hallmark for what's going on all across the country.

-But does that violate anyone's rights?

-Yeah, because you actually don't have the right to stop somebody in that fashion and draw either a firearm or a taser.

There's all kinds of Fourth Amendment issues that are associated with it.

It'd be the equivalent of saying somebody who just because they're undocumented, has-- there's no issue with them, them getting slammed to the ground or them being shot.

There's all kinds of issues still, right?

The Constitution doesn't stop, and Fourth Amendment issues don't stop just because ICE is involved.

And so those are issues that, in fact, may end up being litigated, including on our end, during the pendency of the next couple years, because these issues are becoming more pervasive.

The one thing I'll also add to that is it didn't appear that there was identification provided again.

And we're seeing this across the country.

They're showing up, many instances with masks on, not providing any ID, even when asked, and grabbing people.

How are people even supposed to know that these are ICE officers that are involved?

-To people who would say that if someone is in the country illegally, they do not deserve those same rights as an American citizen, what would you say?

-Yeah, well, I would say that that's not right as a matter of law, but it's also wrong as a matter of principle.

This is a nation that's prided itself on providing dignity to everybody, really valuing humanity, basic human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties.

And for individuals who are saying, you know, this is fine treatment, I suggest they both reconsider what their value set is, but also look at the state of the law.

You know, we've seen this as recently as this year, when we've seen student visas canceled, whether that was for people like Mahmoud Khalil or Rumeysa Ozturk who are here on lawful student visas--and we've even seen this with green card holders--the administration going in and summarily canceling those student visas without notification of the universities.

On the back end of this, people will say, Oh, well, those are exceptions to the rule.

We've seen this happening at scale all across the country.

Even at UNLV, there were lawfully issued student visas that were canceled without notifications to the university.

So this is an administration that is sort of ignoring any basic concepts of humanity.

And there's a lot of people out there who may end up looking at our immigrant communities here and undocumented people and saying, Well, they should have no rights because they're not here lawfully, A, B, C, and D, right?

But the reality is, people have come here for all kinds of reasons.

And if we're supposed to be the greatest country on Earth and we're always talking about how Americans can compete with anybody, you know, we should really hold those values strong.

So for folks who are saying we need to be in a meritocracy and then have those same positions on immigration, it's intellectually dishonest.

-Athar Haseebullah, with the ACLU of Nevada, and Isabella Aldrete, with The Nevada Independent, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you.