An ongoing federal crackdown on immigrants is shrinking Nevada’s workforce in key industries and the state’s economy could suffer because of it, according to panelists who spoke on the issue earlier this month in Las Vegas.

The aggressive immigration tactics from President Donald Trump’s administration — including multimillion-dollar ads encouraging immigrants to self-deport — could reduce the raw number of workers keeping the state’s economy humming, panelists said at the Nov. 6 event hosted by FWD.us and Dream Big Nevada.

Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) added that immigrants are afraid to go to work, school, hospitals, immigration hearings and other events because of high arrest targets given to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — and at least one business owner said he’s seen it firsthand.

“I’m personally seeing on construction sites and in our warehouses we have a lack of the construction workforce because now they’re actually afraid to be on the job site,” said Abraham Camejo, founder of small business Camejo Safety. “So not only am I having to train them and make sure that they’re complying with safety regulations from working on our roofs, on our landscaping jobs, but now they’re afraid of going to work.”

According to Maria Praeli, deputy manager of government operations for FWD.us, a nonprofit that focuses on immigration and criminal justice, Nevada has one of the largest immigrant populations in the country. Immigrants make up a quarter of Nevada’s workforce, with nearly 400,000 workers, and bring in $20.2 billion to the state’s economy. 

“We are a city, state and country that has benefited from the hard work of immigrants,” Assm. Howard Watts (D-Las Vegas) said during the event at the East Las Vegas Community Center.

They work across industries, including 36 percent in construction, 31 percent in leisure and hospitality, 25 percent in transportation and 24 percent in agriculture, according to FWD.us. In Las Vegas alone, the immigrant community spends $16.6 billion a year and pays $4.3 billion a year in taxes.

Praeli said the Trump administration’s policies have resulted in nearly 200,000 people either being deported or leaving the country on their own. An analysis by her organization — which was started by Silicon Valley leaders including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and advocates for comprehensive immigration reform — estimates that by the end of the president’s four-year term, the average American family nationwide will have to pay a little over $2,000 a year due to immigration enforcement.

FWD.us ran economic simulations based on 2024 data on immigrant and U.S. workers to see how deportation, a reduction in work permits and a decrease in new workers coming into the country would change labor supply, production costs and ultimately the prices Americans pay by 2028. 

The analysis stated “producer prices can be expected to increase by 14.5 percent for most food products and 6.1 percent in construction” because of immigration changes, on top of price changes stemming from other inflationary causes. Those two sectors are expected to be hardest hit because immigrants tend to work in fields such as agriculture and construction.

The report adds that “America’s working class spends most of their income on food and housing, and consequently would experience the highest cost-of-living increases.” This comes even as inflation, affordability and economic concerns are a top priority for voters and immigration being a lower priority.

Praeli said the mass deportations are affecting workers who had previously been authorized to be in the country, such as those here under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and on a Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Many of these people are being pulled from the hospitality and construction industries, she said.    

FWD.us said “canceling or restricting legal work permits for those with TPS and other protected statuses, including asylum seekers, would result in nearly 2.6 million workers being sidelined from the labor market.”

Praeli also said the executive order that imposes a $100,000 fee for employers seeking H-1B visas will lead to a “massive loss of highly skilled workers across many industries.”

“We are seeing more talks about the cancellation of work permits for asylum seekers and temporary protective status holders, which will pull even more essential workers out of the economy without action from Congress to protect immigrants,” Praeli said.

Lee said the fight against hard-line immigration policies is a “slow process and it’s hard.” She also noted she cosponsored the Dignity Act, which among other things created protections for asylum seekers. The bill was introduced this summer but has made little progress since.

“It’s heartbreaking for all of us,” Lee said. “We’ve taken issues to the courts, and I know it’s not fast enough but we have been moved to a seismic shift in the environment. All I can say is we can never give up.”