WASHINGTON (AP) — Las Vegas was the only city in Nevada placed on a Department of Homeland Security list of more than 500 "sanctuary jurisdictions" on notice for obstructing immigration enforcement as the Trump administration attempts to increase pressure on communities it believes are standing in the way of the president's mass deportations agenda.

The department on Thursday published a list of the jurisdictions and said each one will receive formal notification that the government has deemed them noncompliant and if they're believed to be in violation of any federal criminal statutes. The list was published on the department's website.

"These sanctuary city politicians are endangering Americans and our law enforcement in order to protect violent criminal illegal aliens," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a press release.

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office said in a statement that “the City of Las Vegas is not a sanctuary jurisdiction” and that the city “is working to quickly resolve this incorrect categorization with the Department of Homeland Security.” 

They also said that “Nevada will continue to follow federal law and cooperate with federal immigration authorities under Governor Lombardo’s leadership.” 

In a text message Thursday evening, Mayor Shelley Berkley disputed Las Vegas’ designation as a sanctuary city. 

“Las Vegas has never been a sanctuary city and I respectfully request that our name be removed from the list. Obviously an inadvertent error,” Berkley wrote. 

City of Las Vegas spokesman David Riggleman confirmed in a Thursday email that Las Vegas has never designated itself as a sanctuary city.  

“In fact, [the mayor] has said numerous times on the record that Las Vegas is not a sanctuary city, and that law enforcement and jail facilities here comply with federal law,” Riggleman wrote. “We are not sure why DHS has classified Las Vegas in the manner it has. We hope to have conversations with those at the federal level to clear up this misunderstanding.” 

 Read more here in our explainer about whether Nevada is a sanctuary state.

Michael Kagan, director of the UNLV Immigration Clinic, wrote in an email Thursday afternoon that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department cooperates with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “when no law requires them to do so.”

He doesn’t believe the statement from Homeland Security should be taken seriously because there hasn’t been any clear definition of sanctuary city, calling it a “vague rhetorical term.”

“It is not clear what policies the Trump Administration is complaining about, or if they even know themselves,” Kagan wrote. “I am not even completely sure which local government entity they mean. Talking about something called ‘Las Vegas City’ does not suggest the people who wrote this know much about our community.”

Berkeley has said she will support the position of Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, which has said that it will not enforce federal immigration laws outside of its jails, but will notify ICE about certain foreign-born individuals who are arrested and charged. 

Homeland Security’s list of cities was compiled using a number of factors, including whether the cities or localities identified themselves as sanctuary jurisdictions, how much they complied already with federal officials enforcing immigration laws, if they had restrictions on sharing information with immigration enforcement or had any legal protections for people in the country illegally, according to the department.

The order could have massive implications in Nevada, which has the largest per-capita  undocumented population of any state and which receives billions of dollars each year toward Medicaid, infrastructure, workforce development and other programming. 

“They are using the threat of withholding already designated and relevant federal funds as a means to compel compliance in that regard,“ Athar Hassebullah, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, told The Indy in a Thursday interview. “It is totally unethical, but this is an administration that doesn't care about ethics or rules.”

Trump signed an executive order April 28 requiring the secretary of Homeland Security and the attorney general to publish a list of states and local jurisdictions that they considered to be obstructing federal immigration laws. The list is to be regularly updated.

Federal departments and agencies, working with the Office of Management and Budget, would then be tasked with identifying federal grants or contracts with those states or local jurisdictions that the federal government identified as "sanctuary jurisdictions" and suspending or terminating the money, according to the executive order.

If "sanctuary jurisdictions" are notified and the Trump administration determines that they "remain in defiance," the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security are then empowered to pursue whatever "legal remedies and enforcement measures" they consider necessary to make them comply.

There's no specific or legal definition of what constitutes a "sanctuary jurisdiction." The term is often used to refer to law enforcement agencies, states or communities that don't cooperate with immigration enforcement.

ICE enforces immigration laws nationwide, but often seeks state and local help in alerting federal authorities of immigrants wanted for deportation and holding that person until federal officers take custody.

One way that the administration seeks to enlist state and local support is through 287(g) agreements with local law enforcement agencies. Those agreements allow local law enforcement agencies to assume some immigration enforcement duties and greatly expand ICE's capabilities. The number of those agreements has skyrocketed in just a matter of months under the Trump administration.

ICE has about 6,000 law enforcement officers — a number that has remained largely static for years — who are able to find, arrest and remove immigrants it’s targeting. By relying on local law enforcement, it can quickly scale up the number of staff available to help carry out Trump's mass deportations agenda.

Communities that don't cooperate with ICE often say they do so because immigrants then feel safer coming forward if they're a witness to or victim of a crime. And they argue that immigration enforcement is a federal task, and they need to focus their limited dollars on fighting crime.

The Trump administration has already taken a number of steps targeting states and communities that don't cooperate with ICE — and has met with pushback in the courts. One executive order issued by Trump directs the attorney general and Homeland Security secretary to withhold federal money from sanctuary jurisdictions. Another directs federal agencies to ensure that payments to state and local governments do not "abet so-called 'sanctuary' policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation."

Updated at 4:16 p.m. on 5/29/2025 to include comments from a city spokesman and an immigration law expert.

Updated at 5:00 p.m. on 5/29/2025 to include comment from Gov. Joe Lombardo’s Office.

Updated at 7:49 a.m. on 5/30/2025 to include a comment from Mayor Shelley Berkley.