Gov. Joe Lombardo speaks to members of the press after the state of the state address at the Nevada State Capital in Carson City on January 15, 2025. (Photo by Richard Bednarski for Nevada Current)
Gov. Joe Lombardo on Wednesday said mass deportations are “not what I believe is an appropriate policy.”
The first-term Republican governor made the comment after his second state of the state address on Wednesday. He was asked by KUNR what impact mass deportations could have on Nevada’s economy.
Lombardo, a former Clark County Sheriff, seemed to suggest that mass deportations might not happen as quickly as some have suggested.
“There’s a lot of functionality in the immigration space that I’m familiar with due to my experience as the sheriff and the 287(g) programs that are sponsored by the federal government,” he said. “I think that resource is going to take an exorbitant amount of time to deal with as we work through the process. A lot of people aren’t familiar with the lack of staffing that ICE has within their current system. It’s a matter of them rebuilding the machine in order to accomplish what they want to accomplish and that takes quite some time.”
Lombardo’s comments come roughly five weeks after he signed onto a joint statement with 25 other Republican governors saying they stood “ready to utilize every tool at their disposal—whether through state law enforcement or the National Guard.”
In early December, two days before the release of the joint statement, Lombardo said it was “too soon to opine” on whether he would authorize the use of the Nevada National Guard to aid President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportation.
Democrats on mass deportation
When asked whether the Nevada State Legislature could do anything to protect Nevadans from mass deportation, Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager said that lawmakers will “continue to watch” the issue but said immigration is largely a federal issue.
“We don’t know what the plan is,” he said in a press conference after the governor’s state of the state. “We’ve heard there’s going to be mass deportations. What does that mean? I don’t know. President Trump hasn’t said what it means. Perhaps Governor Lombardo asked him in the meetings what it means.”
Yeager said one thing the Legislature can do is “be very aware” of the state budget and whether money is being spent on mass deportations. He pointed out that Lombardo in his state of the speech address said he wanted to “hold the line” on the budget and denied millions in agency funding requests.
“So why in the world will we be talking about using state resources to help the federal government in what is a federal issue?” asked Yeager.
“We’ll continue to watch what’s going to happen, but absent a plan from President Trump, and absent a commitment from Governor Lombardo to aide that in some way, I don’t think there’s much we can do besides stand by and make sure we’re not wasting our state resources on what is a federal issue that is reserved for the federal government.”