A 28-year-old Armenian woman who slapped her husband during a dispute at a Las Vegas Strip buffet spent three months in ICE detention and was deported, even though the local district attorney declined to prosecute.

Arpine Misakyan and her family drove from Southern California to Las Vegas for what was supposed to be a night out. They checked into the Bellagio and headed to The Buffet at Wynn for dinner on April 6. By 7:37 that evening, two Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officers were walking into the Encore after Wynn security called to report a domestic battery. Misakyan had slapped her husband, Karen Harutyunyan, during an argument over a phone, 8 News Now reported, citing the arrest report and bodycam footage the station obtained.

What followed was a chain of events that turned a minor domestic dispute into a deportation case, one that exposes how local law-enforcement agreements with federal immigration authorities can carry permanent consequences, even when prosecutors decide the underlying charge does not merit a day in court.

Wynn security had Misakyan in handcuffs before police arrived

Bodycam footage shows officers arriving at the Encore to find Misakyan already restrained. One officer asked why Wynn security had placed her in handcuffs. A Wynn employee told Metro that security had "responded to the call from the buffet" and that hotel surveillance cameras captured the slap.

Harutyunyan, who spoke limited English, tried to explain the situation to officers. On the bodycam, he described the incident as minor.

"Wife slap me because me and my wife, today too much party and enjoy, okay? Family problems."

He added: "Small problems, they too much big." Officers told him Nevada law required a 12-hour hold after a domestic violence arrest so the couple could separate and cool down.

Misakyan's daughter, who never gave her name to police, pushed back, asking officers what the issue was and telling one not to touch her. An officer warned her she was "hindering" and threatened to move her physically. She asked only to hold her mother's hand to calm her down.

Misakyan, meanwhile, complained of high blood pressure and trouble breathing. She left the Encore on a stretcher and was taken to University Medical Center.

ICE agents showed up at the hospital

The arrest triggered a mechanism most Las Vegas tourists have never heard of. LVMPD operates under a Memorandum of Agreement with ICE that requires the department's Detention Services Division to notify federal immigration authorities whenever a foreign-born individual is booked on certain charges. Domestic violence is on the list, alongside felonies, DUI, burglary, theft, and assault on a law-enforcement officer. The policy document states those charges "have the highest impact on public safety."

ICE agents reportedly appeared at UMC to detain Misakyan. Two days later, on April 8, ICE Salt Lake City officers formally arrested her at the Clark County Detention Center. An ICE spokesperson confirmed the arrest, identifying Misakyan as "an illegal alien from Armenia." The agency's statement spelled her surname "Miskayan", a discrepancy from the spelling used in the LVMPD arrest report.

The case is part of a broader pattern of stepped-up immigration enforcement in the region. The Deportation Data Project recorded 301 ICE arrests in July alone, with most occurring in southern Nevada. Across the country, ICE has conducted large-scale arrest operations in multiple metro areas this year.

Prosecutors dropped the charge, but deportation moved forward

At some point before Misakyan's removal, the Clark County District Attorney's office declined to pursue the domestic battery charge. The decision's timing and reasoning were not disclosed. But by then, the immigration enforcement process had its own momentum.

Misakyan was held first at the Henderson Detention Center, then transferred to the Adelanto ICE Processing Facility. Her husband tried several times to free her. He failed.

She reportedly had a pending asylum case, though it remains unclear which body, an immigration court, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or another agency, was handling it, or whether it was adjudicated before she left the country. On July 4, 2026, ICE removed Misakyan to Armenia. The agency said she "accepted voluntary departure."

That phrase carries legal weight. Voluntary departure, in immigration law, is an agreement to leave the country, sometimes in exchange for avoiding a formal removal order. But it can also foreclose future immigration relief, including pending asylum claims. Whether Misakyan understood those consequences, or had adequate legal counsel when she agreed, is not addressed in the available record.

The case draws an uncomfortable parallel to another recent deportation case involving a slapping incident, a Canadian illegal immigrant ordered removed after slapping a teenager on a New Jersey boardwalk. In both cases, a single act of low-level violence set the deportation machinery in motion.

LVMPD and Wynn both declined to answer questions

Neither the police department nor the casino offered much transparency. LVMPD declined to comment on Misakyan's arrest and instead sent 8 News Now a copy of its ICE notification policy. Wynn Las Vegas also declined to comment, referring the station to LVMPD.

Several questions remain unanswered. Misakyan's immigration status at the time of the arrest, whether she was on a valid visa, had overstayed, or was present without authorization, is not clear from the record. The ICE statement called her "an illegal alien," but the article also references a pending asylum case, which would suggest she had at least initiated a legal process to remain in the country.

The administration has made clear that immigration enforcement will extend to anyone in the country unlawfully, regardless of the severity of the triggering offense. ICE deportation flights have resumed to countries that previously enjoyed protected status, and federal courts have cleared the way to end deportation protections for additional nationalities.

Whether that policy is applied with proportionality is a different question. Harutyunyan, the man who was slapped, apparently faced no charges and no immigration consequences. His wife, the one who slapped him, lost her asylum case and her presence in the country.

A system that worked exactly as designed

Nothing in this case appears to have been a mistake, and that is the point worth sitting with. LVMPD followed its policy. ICE followed its mandate. The DA's office exercised its discretion and dropped the charge. And Misakyan still ended up on a plane to Armenia on the Fourth of July, three months after a slap at a buffet.

The system did not malfunction. Every agency did what its rules told it to do. The question is whether those rules, stacked end to end, produce outcomes that match the common-sense standard most Americans would recognize as fair.

Conservatives rightly insist that immigration law must be enforced and that no one, tourist, asylum-seeker, or otherwise, gets a pass on lawbreaking simply because the offense seems minor. That principle is sound. But a government that deports a woman over a charge prosecutors themselves refused to bring had better be sure it is enforcing the law, not just running a conveyor belt.