An IMGW News Report
Las Vegas is feeling the pinch from Washington’s immigration crackdown. Visitor numbers to the Nevada gambling hub fell by 11.3% in June compared with last year, with international arrivals down 13%, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
Union leaders and hotel workers blame the slump partly on the Trump administration’s aggressive stance on immigration. Reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, together with tighter border policies, are discouraging travellers from abroad. Canadians, Nevada’s largest foreign market, appear especially wary: Flair Airlines reported passenger volumes down 55% year on year, while Air Canada flights to Las Vegas dropped by a third.
“Immigrants make up nearly a quarter of Nevada’s workforce and contribute over $20bn to its economy. In the hospitality sector, their presence is even more pronounced”
The fallout is not confined to tourists. Job losses are mounting in the hospitality sector, where immigrants form a large share of the workforce. “People on call are barely getting shifts,” said Norma Torres, a housekeeper at Mandalay Bay and a beneficiary of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). She fears losing her legal status: “I can be separated from my daughters at any time. We live in fear now.”
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders share the same anxieties. Nery Martinez, a bartender at Caesar’s Palace from El Salvador, says revoking TPS would be “devastating, not just for me, but for thousands of families.”
Immigrants make up nearly a quarter of Nevada’s workforce and contribute over $20bn to its economy. In the hospitality sector, their presence is even more pronounced. Ted Pappageorge, leader of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, which represents 60,000 staff, calls the downturn a “Trump slump”. He argues the policies are damaging a city built on global visitors and immigrant labour alike.
For Las Vegas, America’s entertainment capital, the mix of trade tensions, tourism jitters and immigration raids risks turning a high-stakes gamble into a losing bet.
