How the Las Vegas 'Trump slump' is imperiling the economy of a state that returned him to power

11 August 2025

Las Vegas, NV - Jan. 27, 2024: Former President Donald Trump campaigns in Las Vegas ahead of the Nevada Primary and Caucus.

Las Vegas is feeling the sting of a “Trump slump,” as workers and union leaders say President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration policies are scaring off international tourists and triggering job losses across the city’s vital hospitality sector, The Guardian reported Monday.

Data from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority show an 11.3 percent decrease in overall visitors to the city in June 2025 compared to the same month last year.

International tourism fell even more sharply, down 13 percent — a trend industry workers say is driven in part by fears surrounding U.S. immigration policy.

“A lot of departments are having a lot of layoffs,” Norma Torres, a housekeeper at Mandalay Bay for eight years and a member of the Culinary Union told the Guardian.

“In the housekeeping department, the people on call are barely called into work.”

According to the report, Canada, Nevada's largest international tourism source, has seen a steep drop in travel to Las Vegas. Flair Airlines reported a 55 percent decrease in passengers compared to the previous year, while Air Canada experienced a 13.2 percent decline from May to June 2025 — and a 33 percent drop compared to last year.

Ted Pappageorge, secretary-treasurer of Culinary Workers Union Local 226, told The Guardian: “If you tell the rest of the world you’re not welcome, they are going to listen. Our members are telling us that they’re quite nervous, and that’s why they’re calling it a Trump slump."

Pappageorge also pointed to multiple factors compounding the tourism slowdown: ICE operations, trade disputes, and economic instability tied to tariffs.

“You have Canadians that have said, ‘We’re going to go elsewhere.’ Some of our best customers are Mexican tourists. But the biggest one is southern California and visitation is down because they’re nervous about raids, the tariffs, the economy riled up,” he said.

“The way these kind of chaotic immigration policies have been handled have a direct impact, we think, on what’s happening with this slowdown in Las Vegas and our members are quite concerned," he added.

The Culinary Union, which represents 60,000 hospitality workers in Las Vegas and Reno, said 45 percent of its members are immigrants, hailing from 178 countries and speaking 40 languages, per the report.

In Nevada, a state that backed Trump in 2024, immigrants make up 24 percent of the workforce and an even larger portion of the hospitality sector, contributing an estimated $20.2 billion annually to the state economy.

Nery Martinez, a bartender at Caesar’s Palace and union member for a decade, has lived in the U.S. for decades under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from El Salvador.

“That would be devastating, not only for me but for thousands of families,” Martinez said of the potential TPS revocation.

“After 25 years in this place, what would I do if they separate me from my children, from my wife, from my life I had built from scratch? Those things hurt not just me and people like me, but also hurt citizen children, the community and the economy we help sustain," he said, per the report.

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