A letter to the Clark County Board of Supervisors from Chris Inman
RE: Resolution 23-8-25, County cooperation with immigration officials, submitted for 8/21/25 Board Meeting; read resolution here: 08.21.25 County Board Agenda, starting on page 8
The immigrant situation in Clark County is complex, involving difficult economic, social, legal, and moral considerations. Failing to examine and understand a broad range of factors relevant to this issue does all county residents a disservice and may result in a “shoot ourselves in the foot” outcome.
Economic Considerations
Immigrants from Central and South America come to Clark County for jobs. Employers in this county and throughout the country have deliberately enticed these immigrants to do work that local citizens either are unwilling to do or incapable of doing, or there is a lack of workers available in the population. First-hand accounts abound from employers who gave up trying to hire local residents because it too often turned out badly: workers failed to show up, they showed up intoxicated or high, they quit suddenly, or they were insubordinate and even unmanageable. So these employers began hiring workers from Mexico and elsewhere, some on the H-2A or H-2B visa programs. Most immigrants have proven to be hard working and grateful to have a job.
Immigrants and Clark County employers are in a mutually cooperative relationship. In the current labor market, they need each other to sustain local businesses, which underpin our economic well being.
In the agriculture sector alone, according to data from the USDA, nearly half (48.9%) of all workers are foreign-born, with over a quarter (27.3%) being undocumented. Clark County’s data must be broadly similar to this national statistic. If so, farms may not survive if ICE rounds up immigrants for deportation, failing to distinguish between legal and illegal, as the agency has proven to do over and over again.
The economic impact of immigrants on our local economy is significant. They spend their earnings in local grocery stores, restaurants, gas stations, hardware stores, appliance stores, and more. They buy services and health care. They pay taxes on their wages and property, and they pay sales taxes. Social Security and Medicare are withheld from their paychecks just like they are for every employee in the county. Nationwide, illegal immigrants contribute $90B in federal taxes. ICE, on the other hand, is costing taxpayers nationwide nearly $29 billion in 2025. The CATO Institute analysis of the most recent budget puts spending for immigration (when all immigration law enforcement spending is included) at $200 billion. No business or organization management would propose or execute an upside-down budget like this. With a colossal budget
like this, there seems no need for us to spend precious county dollars assisting ICE.
And we must consider the lost opportunity cost of having the Sheriff and local police divert their attention to immigrant matters rather than serving customary law enforcement duties. What do we value most: patrolling our streets and highways, protecting lives and property, ensuring a safe community, or pursuing suspected illegal immigrants.
Social Considerations
Immigrants are woven into the fabric of our communities. They participate in every aspect of our culture. Their kids are in our schools, they volunteer on our fire fighting and EMT crews, they attend festivals and community events. And they attend our churches. But only if they feel safe. As long as ICE arrests illegal and legal immigrants without regard for status, fear will escalate and workers will flee.
Most legal immigrants are related to illegal immigrants living and working in our communities. If our county leaders endorse the unconstitutional arrest of legal immigrants as ICE raids local farms, factories, building sites, and processing plants, distrust will surely increase. This practice will send panic and confusion among the community, causing many to move away. The threat of separation from a spouse, a child, a brother or sister or cousin, is too great and potentially life altering for it not to have an impact on our county. These people are families; the kinds of families we typically value and consider an asset.
It’s easy for this Resolution to state that it’s all about illegal immigration, but in practice those words are quickly forgotten, blurred, ignored, and violated.
Legal Considerations
We all agree we have an illegal immigration problem in this country. A comprehensive solution is necessary for the long-term security of our country. Illegal immigration is a misdemeanor, like a minor traffic infraction, according to the law. It escalates to a felony if a person is deported and re-enters the US. And if an immigrant, just like any citizen, breaks our laws, they are liable for appropriate penalties as prescribed by municipal, state, and national legal codes. An illegal immigrant who has been convicted of a felony, after receiving constitutionally protected due process, should face an appropriate penalty, just like any citizen. Though all of us must keep in mind that as a population cohort, illegal immigrants commit far fewer crimes of every type than are committed by citizens. If we want to direct resources at the factual source of crime, we would target citizens, and that is true of every category of crime including drug smuggling across the US-Mexico border.
This is not to say that illegal immigrants do not commit crimes, and serious crimes at that. The referendum provides national data on crime, mostly examples of specific, terrible crimes. But we live in Clark County, where there is far less crime than national averages or totals. Our objective is to govern this county based on data and evidence relative to our region. It would be instructive for us to have Clark County crime data that reveals the dangers we face from illegal immigrants, if in fact, that is the case.
But here is another problem. So many solutions employed by ICE are unconstitutional, as ruled by many courts. We as a citizenry should be absolutely opposed to mass arrests, the lack of due process, the lack of accountability of ICE agents and the legal system, and the underlying threats to our rights. If a masked army can be unleashed on one sector of our populace, they can be redirected easily toward another. This prelude to fascism is legitimately worrisome.
Perpetuating and abetting these practices in Clark County will result in unrest, protests, distrust, division, and undermine our communities. Passing the referendum will literally pit neighbor against neighbor.
An argument was made at last week’s Board meeting that this Resolution is nothing new; it simply reinforces implicit commitments that direct local law enforcement to assist in the execution of ICE’s duties. If that is the sincere aim and a direction that the county board wishes to take, then there are many adjacent issues that need attention. Will local law enforcement arrest farmers, factory owners, builders and roofing company owners who hire directly or subcontract illegal immigrants? Should our Sheriff and police work with the courts to fine these employers, increasing the fines with the number of offenses and shutting down businesses that
continually hire workers who return after deportation? Should towns lose state and federal funding because illegal immigrants are persistently discovered living in their boundaries, with their kids attending the schools? Are churches penalized for allowing illegal immigrants to worship? All of these practices aid illegal immigrants, and the answers to these questions, and many others, have deep implications for every resident of Clark county. Or are we going to have another crush the weak, spare those like us policy.
Directing local and federal police to spend their time on immigration, and not on others who break the law, is unjust. As with many periods in our Country’s history, it tells us power and position matter, that we no longer have a system of laws that are equally applied. As many are saying, we are no longer bound and protected by a common set of laws. Rather, the wealthy and powerful are protected by laws, while the middle and lower classes are bound by them.
Moral Considerations
Immigrants, whether legal or illegal, are human beings. They’re looking to make a better life for their families. Many have escaped countries with bad economies, violence and crime, corrupt governance, where the better choice was to risk their lives to cross into the US, and face US laws and find a job, than it was to stay home. It’s hard to imagine making that choice. What would it take for any of us to risk everything, including death, to feed our kids? What lengths would we go to?
Does Abbyland deserve to be raided suddenly by masked men, its workers indiscriminately handcuffed, pushed into vans, separated from families and transported to unknown detention facilities without any legal recourse or due process? The same can be asked of many farms in the county. It does not serve our interest to abet these practices.
Yes, a country needs border security to maintain its sovereignty, but that has to be balanced with a level of compassion for all human beings. The same is true for our county. Without love and compassion for others, the weakest among us in particular, we are diminished. Many Clark County residents believe there is a better way to handle the immigration predicament than to sic our county law enforcement personnel on them. Let ICE do it’s work, however misguided, without our complicity.
Conclusion
This is not an argument for obstructing or undermining immigration law. Those who oppose immigration laws will fight them by other means, just as opponents for and against laws have done throughout our nation’s history. This is an argument opposing the direct involvement of Clark County law enforcement in ICE efforts to identify, arrest, and deport illegal immigrants. ICE has the trained personnel, an enormous budget, vast facilities, and the means to conduct immigration law enforcement without additional support from Clark County. Our county law enforcement are trained for other duties and have a completely different service portfolio.
For the past 25 years, budgets for the Sheriff and police in this county have been thin. Adding deputies has always been a struggle. Covering all the needs of the county has been a struggle. Reacting to crimes and accidents across the county’s 1,200 square miles is difficult. And dealing with the unpredictable nature of crime is risky. There is no need to add direct involvement in immigration affairs to the list of responsibilities for local law enforcement. It’s not within our budget or resources to do it.
It is imperative that we do no harm to our local economy, and refrain from building a law enforcement identity that citizens mistrust and even disdain. An exodus of labor could jeopardize the existence of our farms, factories, and other businesses.
I urge you to vote NO on Resolution 23-8-25.
Thank you for your consideration.
