Gov. Joe Lombardo issued a joint statement with other Republican governors last week saying that he is ready to deploy state law enforcement and the National Guard to support deportation efforts under the incoming Trump administration — a move that could have major implications in Nevada, which has the highest per capita undocumented population of any state.

Lombardo — alongside every other Republican governor except Vermont Gov. Phil Scott — said that he is ready to “utilize every tool” at his disposal to prevent illegal immigration. Lombardo had previously declined to comment on whether he would deploy Nevada’s National Guard to support President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed mass deportation campaign, and at a press conference two days earlier had said that “it’s too soon to opine on the nebulous or the unknown.”

“A lot of things, I know, get promised during campaigns, and then the practicality of implementing those comes to bear,” Lombardo said Dec. 9 at the Western Governors Association conference. 

So exactly how “practical” is deploying Nevada’s National Guard, and what would such a move look like? 

Lombardo’s office did not return requests for comment.  Nevada’s National Guard declined to comment.

What is the National Guard? 

The National Guard is a special component of the U.S. military that answers to state governors and the president, fulfilling a range of different functions including military support and law enforcement. Most of the time, National Guards are commanded by the governors of their respective states, but presidents can federalize the guard in certain cases (meaning they come under full federal command) although they can rarely do so without the consent of a state’s governor.

Nevada’s National Guard, which is affiliated with the Army and Air Force, is about 4,500 people strong as of 2022, including approximately 3,300 soldiers and 1,200 airmen. Most people in the guard only serve part-time — they are required to participate in military training one weekend a month and 15 days each year in their respective military occupations. 

The state’s national guard fulfills a variety of roles including overseas missions, acting as law enforcement at community events, responding to wildfires and supporting the state’s coronavirus response, which was its longest and largest domestic deployment.

What might the guard do to help with immigration enforcement?

If the Republican governors follow through with their promises, it could largely facilitate the execution of a national mass deportation campaign. 

Under federal law, a state must first obtain permission from another to deploy its National Guard into that territory. Thus, if the Republican governors all agree, Trump will be able to deploy the National Guard with more ease and Republican states will be able to send supporting troops into each other’s territories.

Michael Kagan, director of the UNLV Immigration Clinic, said he believes that the National Guard could facilitate the logistics of a mass deportation campaign, freeing up the federal military’s manpower. 

“The logistical capacity, the detention space, the transportation capacity and the personnel are challenges that the Trump administration will have to confront if they're going to really ramp up deportations,” Kagan said. 

Has the National Guard been involved in immigration enforcement before?

Deploying the National Guard to assist with immigration control is not totally unprecedented. Trump deployed units from Texas, Arizona and California to the southern border in April 2018 to aid with “aviation, engineering, surveillance, communications, vehicle maintenance and logistical support” and in 2010, former President Barack Obama also used the National Guard to support the Customs and Border Protection agency with similar roles.

However, using National Guard forces or active-duty military to help deport migrants in the country’s interior could be a drastic escalation of their prior use in the immigration sphere, according to the progressive nonprofit think tank Brennan Center for Justice. 

Typically, the National Guard and military provide logistical support in ways that don’t interact directly with migrants, leaving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to identify, detain and remove unauthorized migrants. Lombardo has previously rejected sending Nevada’s National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border, including earlier this year, and said in a 2022 debate that it would be excessively expensive.

Federal law, meanwhile, generally prohibits using active-duty service members for law enforcement inside the U.S., unless authorized by Congress or if the president invokes the Insurrection Act, which Trump has promised to on his first day back in office. 

The role of state government

Nevada’s Democrat-controlled Legislature, however, could complicate state efforts to follow through on Trump’s immigration platform. 

Although immigration law is federal, local law enforcement plays an outsized role in carrying it out, with more than 70 percent of ICE arrests in the U.S. during the past decade having been handoffs from another law enforcement agency. 

Many states with Republican-controlled legislatures are already creating proposals that would complement Trump’s immigration policies, such as requiring local law enforcement agencies to notify ICE when they take someone into custody who is in the country illegally, even if the charges have nothing to do with their immigration status. 

“You will likely have a stalemate on a lot of issues between the governor and the Legislature,” Kagan said. “The Nevada state government it's not monolithic, to put it mildly right now. So it's likely that will prevent the Nevada state government from acting with a great deal of coherency.” 

According to the left-leaning nonprofit Immigrant Legal Resource Center, Nevada currently has few laws when it comes to immigration enforcement, such as checking immigration status when applying for professional or occupational licensure, and lands squarely in the middle of “pro-immigrant” and “anti-immigrant” policies. 

But Assemblywoman Selena Torres (D-Las Vegas) said that she’s hopeful that the some statutes the Legislature has put in place in recent years will mitigate the effects of a mass deportation campaign. She pointed to AB195, a 2021 bill that declares students have the right to receive public education regardless of immigration status (a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision also upholds that right). 

Torres said she also hopes to revive a bill she previously sponsored that would block collaboration between ICE and state and local law enforcement agencies, known as 287(g) programs, in Nevada. Under the partnership, jail staff notify ICE that a person suspected of being undocumented is in their facility and sometimes hold them for extra time, allowing ICE agents to take custody of the person before they are released back into the community.

Although there are currently no 287(g) agreements in Nevada, opponents of 287(g) have previously raised concerns about transparency, pointing out that Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department does not release details about who is detained and what triggered arrests. 

And although Metro ended its 287(g) agreement in 2019, when Lombardo was sheriff, it was revealed in 2021 that under Lombardo's direction, Metro helped ICE agents arrest potentially hundreds of non-violent undocumented immigrants. 

“Requiring our law enforcement agencies to do the work of immigration officials, it's not one of those responsibilities that they are meant to uphold,” Torres said.