Last week, dozens of people testified at a city council meeting against the City of Henderson’s agreement to house U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees at the local jail. Attendees decried growing ICE activity nationwide, detention conditions at the facility and civil rights concerns.  

But as the city considers reevaluating its agreement, financial concerns may be part of that calculation. 

Since 2020, revenue from the city’s contract with ICE has nearly halved, according to data from a public records request. In the 2025 fiscal year, the facility made $3.5 million in revenue from its agreement with ICE — a significant decrease from the $7.3 million the contract generated in 2020 — the last full year of President Donald Trump’s first term. Since then, the facility’s ICE revenue has hovered around $3 million per fiscal year, decreasing due to a reduced number of ICE detainees housed at the facility, according to the city.  

Meanwhile, the total operating costs of the facility have risen significantly. In the past five years, costs have increased by nearly $10 million, from $24 million in 2020 to more than $33 million in 2025. Those costs include non-ICE related expenses such as salaries, benefits and supplies. 

That means ICE is bringing in less than 10 percent of jail revenue, even though ICE detainees are making up nearly a quarter of the jail's population.

The records provided did not include a breakdown on how completely ICE reimbursements are covering the per-detainee costs to the detention center. And in the past, the city continued the contract even though it did not resolve the jail’s budget gap — officials reported in 2021 that the jail operated at a loss even with ICE, but it was less of a loss than it would be without ICE.

A fuller review

City officials and residents have speculated about the financial viability of the agreement in recent weeks. The city told The Nevada Independent that as it assesses its agreement with ICE it is reviewing several areas, including “financial considerations.” At the city council last week, some Henderson residents contended that the city loses money through the agreement.

In addition to revenue from ICE, the detention center’s operational costs are paid through the city’s general fund, which comes from property taxes and other fees. 

“We need to be fiscally responsible with the money that has been entrusted to us,” Henderson City Councilman Jim Seebock told The Nevada Independent in an interview. “I will not support the city losing millions of dollars if that is what is learned once all the facts are in, and I don’t believe the community would either.”

Seebock told The Nevada Independent in an interview that the council began reevaluating its agreement with ICE before the most recent city council meeting. The city, Seebock said, has been preparing a comprehensive financial analysis of the facility to ensure “we’re being as efficient and effective as we can.”

That full analysis has not yet been published.

The city’s agreement with the federal government has been in place since 2010. It allows up to 250 ICE and U.S. Marshal detainees to be housed in its detention center. In exchange, the jail receives payments that help cover staff salaries and other expenses. ICE pays Henderson $135 per person per day, according to the contract with the U.S. Marshal Service; it is one of the highest rates in the nation. 

As of December, about 90 ICE detainees were being held at the facility, representing nearly a quarter of the center’s total population. In comparison, the facility had about 189 ICE detainees on average in 2020. 

Seebock — who once worked for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department — said that ICE revenue in itself is not enough to form a complete portrait of the facility’s finances. He noted that there are many indirect costs that can tally up, including medical care, transporting people to and from court and legal representation through the city attorney’s office.

“So it’s not just a simple, ’This is how much it costs to house,’” Seebock said. “There’s other things that we need to have a complete picture on so we can make an informed decision.”

It’s not the first time the city evaluated the contract’s cost. A 2021 audit of the city’s detention center found that revenue from ICE helped decrease but “not eliminate” the facility’s overall operating losses. The city noted that in 2020, it would have lost $21 million without its contract with ICE. With that contract, the city still lost $16 million.  

The audit also noted that housing ICE detainees resulted in increased costs for food, clothing and medical care because more extensive federal ICE detention standards are applied to the entire population, not just ICE detainees. Because staffing and administration costs are fixed, overall expenditures would not significantly change if ICE detainees were not housed at the center, it found.

Wanda Bertram, a spokesperson for the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative, told The Indy that agreements with ICE can be a way for local prisons to cover budget holes. She said that in some cases jails will even plan renovations or expansions hoping that money from the federal contract will cover expenses.

“If you have a jail that’s underfunded, it’s a little bit dicey to say, ’OK, we’re going to get funding from the federal government, but we’re also going to have to take on all these new detainees,’" Bertram said. 

Still, such agreements can be costly. In late 2024, Nye County terminated a long-standing agreement with ICE after years of mounting funding concerns, with the county having to eventually pull $4 million from its general fund to cover costs. Nationwide, other jurisdictions — such as Tulsa County in Oklahoma and Prince William County in Virginia —  have terminated agreements with ICE, arguing that the financial benefit of providing jail and transportation services does not outweigh the cost.

Seebock said that even if the agreement ends with ICE, that as far as he is concerned, Henderson “will not become a sanctuary city.” The city has previously told The Indy that it does not identify as a sanctuary jurisdiction and that it has a lengthy immigration policy that stipulates that the jail will inform ICE whenever it has a suspected or confirmed undocumented immigrant in its custody.

“It’s undetermined on what direction we’re heading, but we have to wait for all the data to come in,” he said.