A slap caught on hotel surveillance cameras at Encore Las Vegas set off a chain of events that ended with a 28-year-old woman detained by federal immigration agents for three months and ultimately removed to Armenia. Arpine Misakyan was arrested on April 6 after an argument with her husband over a phone escalated into a physical altercation inside the Wynn-owned resort, and by July she had left the country under a deportation order that started with a domestic violence call nobody at the family's table saw coming.
A Family Dinner Interrupted by Police
According to KLAS 8 News Now, Misakyan's family had traveled from Southern California and was dining at Wynn Las Vegas when a Wynn employee reported that surveillance cameras had observed Misakyan slapping her husband, Karen Harutyunyan, following an argument over a phone. The family had been staying at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino at the time. Metro officers arrived at Encore at 7:37 p.m. on April 6 after hotel staff reported the domestic battery, and the station reports Misakyan was informed by officers that she was under police custody for domestic violence.
Misakyan complained of high blood pressure and trouble breathing during the encounter and was ultimately taken from Encore on a stretcher to University Medical Center, per the same account. Harutyunyan told the station his wife felt unwell and said he tried to free his wife from custody, but LVMPD said the family was uncooperative. She was later taken to UMC before being processed through the county jail system.
Why Nevada Law Required an Arrest
Under Nevada Revised Statute 171.137, peace officers responding to a domestic violence incident within 24 hours must arrest the suspected primary aggressor, and state law mandates a strict 12-hour hold before the arrested individual can post bail or be released, according to the Las Vegas Defense Group. That mandatory arrest statute meant Metro officers were legally obligated to detain Misakyan regardless of her medical distress or her husband's wishes. The Clark County District Attorney's Office later declined to pursue a domestic battery charge against her, but by then the arrest had already triggered a separate, federal process.
Once booked, Misakyan's case fell under LVMPD's ICE Notification Policy, known as Policy 4.166, which requires the department's detention services division to notify ICE when a foreign-born individual is arrested and charged with specified offenses, including felony charges, domestic violence, DUI, burglary, theft, larceny, petit larceny, and assault of a law enforcement officer. That list was expanded in January 2025 following passage of the federal Laken Riley Act, according to KNPR. The same policy explicitly states that Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officers will not stop, question, detain, or place immigration holds on individuals solely on suspicion of civil immigration status, drawing a line between local criminal booking and federal civil immigration enforcement.
ICE Steps In After the DA Steps Back
Even though local prosecutors held sole authority over whether to file charges, a decision by the district attorney not to prosecute does not nullify a pending federal immigration detainer, according to the Nevada Attorney General's office. That gap allowed ICE Salt Lake City officers to arrest Misakyan at the Clark County Detention Center on April 8, according to a statement from an ICE spokesperson. ICE agents also showed up at UMC in an attempt to detain her, per the KLAS report, before she was ultimately transferred from Henderson Detention Center to the Adelanto ICE Processing Facility in California.
LVMPD maintains a memorandum of agreement with ICE, and in June 2025 the department formally rejoined ICE's 287(g) program following discussions between Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo and Metro Sheriff Kevin McMahill, restoring direct jailhouse immigration screening partnerships at the Clark County Detention Center. The ICE Salt Lake City Field Office that carried out Misakyan's custody transfer oversees immigration enforcement across a four-state region spanning Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Montana, per U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Three Months at a Private Detention Facility
Misakyan spent three months detained at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, a privately operated 1,455-bed facility in San Bernardino County managed by the GEO Group. In July 2026, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against federal immigration authorities over conditions there, ordering immediate 24-hour access to clean drinking water and adequate medical care for detainees, according to CalMatters. It is not stated in available reporting whether that injunction applied during the specific period Misakyan was held at the facility.
Misakyan had a pending asylum case in the United States, but that case ended when she accepted voluntary departure. Under Section 240B of the Immigration and Nationality Act, noncitizens who receive voluntary departure leave the country at their own expense without a formal removal order on their record, avoiding the automatic 10-year re-entry ban tied to formal deportation, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. An ICE spokesperson said Misakyan accepted voluntary departure and was removed to Armenia on July 4. Wynn Las Vegas declined to comment on the matter, according to the original report.
Part of a Broader Enforcement Surge
Misakyan's case unfolded against a backdrop of sharply rising immigration enforcement in the region. Analysis of federal data by UC Berkeley's Deportation Data Project found the ICE Salt Lake City Field Office averaged 23 arrests per day in late 2025, a more than 150 percent increase over the same period in 2024, according to The Nevada Independent. The Deportation Data Project also reported 301 ICE arrests in July, with most occurring in Southern Nevada, per the KLAS report.
