Las Vegas Review-Journal: ‘Catastrophic’: Experts warn mass deportations could cause Nevada economic fallout

New reporting lays out experts’ warning that Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan would include essential workers, regardless of their criminal records, would hinder Nevada’s economic growth and worsen the state’s housing crisis. Trump will pursue the largest domestic deportation operation in history, launching large-scale raids to round up thousands of immigrants in Nevada every year, even if they have been living and working in the U.S. for decades, potentially leaving thousands of children right here in Nevada to come home from school to a missing parent. Trump’s mass deportation plan goes beyond bipartisan agreement to deport undocumented immigrants with a criminal record and targets those who have spent years building a home and life in Nevada. Undocumented immigrants paid $500 million in taxes and make up nearly 9 percent of the state’s workforce, the highest share per capita in the nation. 

Meanwhile, Nevada Republicans are on board with Trump’s plan to remove thousands of immigrants. 

Read more below:

Las Vegas Review Journal: ‘Catastrophic’: Experts warn mass deportations could cause Nevada economic fallout

3/3/25

Key points:

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

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

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

• “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.”

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.