KVIG Informative

Las Vegas built its economy on tourism. A third of the workers keeping that tourism economy running were born outside the United States.

Immigrants make up 34% of Nevada’s leisure and hospitality workforce, according to an analysis by the nonprofit FWD.us — a sector that anchors the state’s tourism-dependent economy through hotels, casinos, restaurants and entertainment venues.

The reliance is even more concentrated in specific hospitality-adjacent trades. Immigrants account for 30% of Nevada’s food and beverage service workforce and 47% of taxi service workers, according to the same analysis, both industries closely tied to the tourism experience Southern Nevada sells to visitors.

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That workforce has faced direct disruption from federal immigration enforcement this year. The six-week closure of Broadacres Marketplace, a North Las Vegas swap meet, after a nearby enforcement operation illustrated how quickly enforcement activity can ripple through businesses that depend on immigrant customers and workers alike.

Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine cited that closure directly in a letter he and 15 other state fiscal officers sent to the Trump administration this year, arguing immigrants generate more than $20 billion in economic activity in Nevada annually and that continued enforcement disruption threatens the state’s tax base.

International migration to Nevada dropped sharply in 2025, with none of the state’s 17 counties recording an increase in international arrivals compared with the previous year — a trend that, if sustained, would shrink the labor pool feeding hospitality and other tourism-adjacent industries over time.

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Gov. Joe Lombardo authorized the Nevada National Guard to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an administrative capacity, with that authorization extended through September 2026 — even as the state’s political leadership has simultaneously flagged the economic risk enforcement activity poses to the tourism industry specifically.

Nevada’s entire brand is built on hospitality. A third of the workers providing that hospitality are foreign-born, and the state’s own treasurer has already put in writing what happens to the local economy when enforcement disrupts them — even briefly.