Nevada taxpayers collectively paid $2.7 billion toward President Donald Trump's mass deportation program in 2025, working out to roughly $2,421 for the average taxpayer in the state, according to a new analysis. Clark County alone accounted for $1.8 billion of that total, while Washoe County taxpayers contributed nearly $600,000.
The figures come from the Economic Policy Institute, which built the estimate by combining IRS Statistics of Income tax data with a national deportation spending projection from the Institute for Policy Studies' National Priorities Project, as reported by Nevada Current. Nationwide, the group estimates the federal government plans to spend $268.9 billion carrying out mass deportations across Trump's full second term, translating to $2,358 per taxpayer across the country. Nevada's per-taxpayer figure sits above that national average.
The methodology behind those numbers relies on 2022 IRS Statistics of Income geographic tax tables, the most recent local tax filer data available as of mid-2026, according to Economic Policy Institute technical documentation. That dataset maps federal income tax paid after credits down to the county level, which is how researchers arrived at Clark County's outsized $1.8 billion share of Nevada's total, driven largely by the county's population density.
What Else the Money Could Have Bought
EPI economist Heidi Shierholz argued the money spent on deportations represents a lost opportunity for other public investments. “The Trump administration's immigration policy is not just inhumane, it is also a huge waste of public resources,” Shierholz said, adding that “every dollar spent on mass deportations is a dollar not spent on critical investments like education, health care, and affordable housing.”
According to the same analysis reported by Nevada Current, the $2.7 billion Nevada taxpayers spent on deportations could have instead supported 187,000 people through Medicaid, or provided medical care for 47,000 veterans. The same money could have funded SNAP benefits for 1.3 million people or paid for 10,000 additional school teachers in the state.
Nationally, the full $268.9 billion could have funded 118.2 million SNAP recipients, 9.7 million public housing units, 1 million firefighters, or 6.2 million parents receiving 12 weeks of paid parental leave, per the outlet's report. Those comparisons arrive as SNAP, Medicaid, and other public assistance programs have already seen cuts under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Nevada Current reports has left thousands of people locally and millions nationally more vulnerable.
The Legislation Behind the Spending
Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a roughly 900-page reconciliation package, into law on July 4, 2025, after it passed both the House and Senate by single-vote margins, according to the National Immigration Forum. The law quadrupled Immigration and Customs Enforcement's annual detention budget, allocating $45 billion for adult and family detention capacity — an 800% increase over fiscal year 2024 levels — to maintain daily capacity for more than 100,000 detainees.
The bill also set aside $10 billion for ICE personnel expansion, including $858 million in signing and retention bonuses meant to help hire 10,000 new agents by 2029, the National Immigration Forum's documentation shows. The Trump administration has separately promised border patrol and ICE agents a $10,000 annual bonus over the next four years, along with plans to expand detention centers to hold 10,000 immigrants and expand the border wall. The White House has said ICE officers and agents have doubled in number since Trump took office, and the Department of Homeland Security has reported more than 605,000 deportations, while the administration says 1.9 million immigrants have voluntarily self-deported.
A Congressional Budget Office dynamic estimate released in June 2025 projected the law would add $2.8 trillion to federal budget deficits through 2034 and cause 10.9 million Americans to lose health coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The administration has set a goal of removing one million immigrants annually.
DHS Defends the Spending as Necessary
Not everyone agrees the trade-off described by EPI is the right way to frame the debate. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in August 2026 that unauthorized immigration costs U.S. taxpayers more than $150 billion annually, arguing enforcement spending is necessary to prevent long-term fiscal strain, as reported by Newsweek.
That argument lands differently in Nevada than in many other states. Roughly 610,400 immigrants live in Nevada, with 391,200 immigrant workers making up 24% of the state's total labor force, according to American Immigration Council data published in 2026. An estimated 199,100 undocumented immigrants reside in the state, giving Nevada one of the highest overall immigrant population shares in the Mountain West region at 19.2%.
Nevada's $2,421 per-taxpayer figure lands well above the roughly $1,800 seen in states like Kansas and Missouri, though still below Washington, D.C.'s nation-high $3,900, according to comparative analysis reported by Axios. With immigrant workers making up nearly a quarter of Nevada's labor force, the state's service and hospitality-heavy economy sits at the center of the broader national argument over whether deportation spending strengthens or strains local communities.
