Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have taken at least 240 Clark County Detention Center inmates into custody since a local-federal agreement went into effect at the jail in late 2025.
The 240 were among 264 inmates with ICE warrants issued between mid-December, when the department inked a 287(g) agreement with ICE, and March 5, according to Metropolitan Police Department figures.
Even so, Sheriff Kevin McMahill said his agency’s relationship with ICE hadn’t changed since it re-entering the jail-based program last year.
“ICE still doesn’t pick up everybody that is eligible, that they’ve said that they wanted to come get from my jail,” McMahill said during a wide-ranging March 5 interview that covered a variety of topics including the department’s cooperation with the Trump administration’s enhanced illegal immigration enforcement.
A 287(g) agreement allows ICE to issue warrants for inmates it wants to pick up for immigration enforcement, giving agents up to 48 hours to pick them up after they’re slated to be released from the jail.
The contract was affirmed in June, but a number of Metro Detention Services Division’s staffers had to complete federal training before it formally went into effect in December, the police department said.
The trained officers flag all foreign-born inmates for ICE, which then conducts background checks on the individuals, McMahill said.
“ICE then takes their personally identifying information, makes a determination whether they’re in the country legally or not, and that they want to deport them or not,” he said.
In some cases, ICE just wants to talk to the inmates, he said. Metro issues a second notification four hours before they are set to be released.
McMahill reiterated that Metro’s role is strictly administrative and limited to the jail.
“I don’t have any way to determine whether or not that person is in the country legally or not,” McMahill said. “That’s why I make the notification.”
Previous informal collaboration
Prior to the agreement, Metro was already notifying ICE when booking foreign-born inmates on allegations of violent crime, DUI and domestic violence. The Laken Riley Act in early 2025 expanded the list of qualifying charges to include theft-related offenses.
About 350 inmates at the county jail had been flagged for ICE on one day in early June, McMahill said last year. At the time, the inmate population fluctuated with an average of 250 overall daily arrests.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada challenged the 287(g) arrangement in a lawsuit. A District Court judge on Friday ruled that the organization didn’t have a standing.
Metro and the city of Las Vegas previously participated in an version of the program at the jails but withdrew in 2019 after a court decision raised concerns about the arrangement’s constitutionality.
“The reality is that whether it’s in this matter or another matter, a court is going to ultimately make a decision on the merits of this agreement, because we will not stop filing challenges on this,” said Athar Haseebullah, executive director of the ACLU of Nevada.
Only Sergio Morais-Hechavarria — who was at the center of the lawsuit — had been held past the 48 hours, said McMahill in the March 5 interview.
In the lawsuit, attorneys said that Metro had delayed the man’s court-ordered release into a treatment facility for weeks before he was taken by ICE. Police argued that he was held because there were no beds available.
McMahill said requests by several federal agencies asking for Metro to participate in immigration enforcement outside the agency’s limited role at the jail have stopped. He told the Review-Journal about a year ago that he had turned down a number of such requests.
McMahill signed the ICE agreement on May 30, a day after President Donald Trump’s administration declared the city of Las Vegas as a so-called sanctuary for undocumented immigrants.
Last year, he said the agreement had been weeks in the making. Nevada landed in a Department of Justice list of sanctuary states months later.
The state was later removed after Gov. Joe Lombardo’s administration signed a memorandum of understanding pledging full collaboration with immigration enforcement.
Deportations without local due process
McMahill gave differing opinions on situations in which undocumented suspects agree to self-deport before their case can be tried in court.
He said he would like undocumented suspects to answer for their alleged local crimes before they’re turned over to immigration authorities.
“I don’t like the fact that ICE is picking up an individual before their case is adjudicated completely,” the sheriff told the Review-Journal.
But on the other hand, he added, “if a guy’s recklessly driving and he kills a woman, why are we releasing them back out into our community?”
He was referring to the case of Angel Antonio Franco Merida, who was allowed to self-deport soon after posting bail in the killing of Amber Brown in 2025.
Metro accused the motorist of running a solid red light before he hit the Las Vegas nurse on a crosswalk. ICE picked up Franco Merida after he posted a $50,000 bond.
McMahill said there were similar cases.
“Same thing with the number of individuals that are charged with sexual assault of a child, and then some judge chooses to let them back out into our community,” he said. “I don’t want them out here.”
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, Brown’s mother and the suspect’s lawyer lamented that Franco Merida was deported before the U.S. justice system decided his fate.
Should public tensions occur in Las Vegas?
McMahill said he has considered what could happen if the Las Vegas Valley found itself in the position of Minneapolis earlier this year, when federal agents killed protesters Renée Good and Alex Pretti. The two U.S. citizens were shot amid increased immigration enforcement operations.
Enforcement surges have occurred in the Las Vegas Valley, including after Customs and Border Protection agents were dispatched here a while back, McMahill said.
Metro had participated in a tabletop exercise with federal agencies to examine what would happen if someone was shot by officers and what role each entity would play investigating it, the sheriff said.
“It was enlightening to say the least,” McMahill said. “I can tell you, I’m not sure that all of them knew those answers.”
He added: “Trying to get through what these things are going to look like as we move forward, I think is an important part of my role as a sheriff is to lead our way through these things.”
McMahill participates in monthly briefings with federal agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. He said he does so to see how their operations might affect the county.
”I’m confident that we’re complying with the laws that have been asked of us to comply with,” McMahill said. “But as we both know, all of this stuff is very, very unpredictable. So, we’ll be answering tough questions as they come along.”
Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com
