SALT LAKE CITY – Utah officials – including Gov. Spencer Cox and members of the Republican majority in the Utah Legislature – appear prepared to cooperate with the incoming Trump administration’s promise to “…begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
In late November, Cox announced a “get tough” state initiative to enhance coordination between federal, state and local authorities to identify, incarcerate and deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes or pose a threat to public safety.
On Jan. 6, House Majority Whip Karianne Lisonbee (R-Clearfield) joined with seven Republican lawmakers and Jess Anderson, the Utah Commissioner of Public Safety, to announce a sweeping package of proposed laws to facilitate Cox’s goals and those of President-Elect Donald Trump.
Cox and Republican leaders in the Legislature have also thrown down the gauntlet to Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, criticizing law enforcement efforts in Utah’s capital.
In a December letter, the governor added his weight to that of House Speaker Mike Schultz (R-Hooper) and Senate President Stuart Adams (R-Layton) demanding that Mendenhall draft a robust public safety plan to address the city’s rapidly growing homeless population – many of whom are illegals — by Jan. 17 or face legislative action.
When Joe Biden took office as president in 2021, the Hispanic population of the United States was about 62 million, with estimates of about 10 million of those residents having entered the country illegally and remaining undocumented. Current estimates put American’s population of illegals at 12 million as of September of 2024.
Even immigrant-friendly Utah has felt the impact of the Biden administration four-year failed experiment with open borders, according to state officials.
Utah became a “new destination” for foreign immigrants in the 1990s and in-migration continued throughout the following decades.
By now, Hispanics make up about 16 percent of Utah’s population of 3.5 million, according to 2020 Census figures. Illegals represent about 40 percent of those 500,000 Hispanics, according to rough estimates by the 2024 Utah Priorities Project.
But illegal immigrants make up an estimated 4.6 percent of Utah’s prison population and cost taxpayers nearly $16 million annually.
State officials also report that the majority of crimes committed by illegal aliens in prison are sex offenses and murder.
State police have also seen an increase in drug distribution over the past year along the Jordan River Trail, where more than half of all drug-related offenses are committed by illegal immigrants.
The package of a dozen proposed laws announced by Lisonbee on Jan. 6 included enhanced penalties for driving without a license; squatting in vacant homes; recruiting minors into gangs; fentanyl trafficking; and for felony convictions following an unlawful re-entry into the United States.
Utah’s proposed new crackdown on illegal immigrants is opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah along with outspoken Democratic members of the Legislature.
Those proposals threaten due process and the civil rights of all Utahns, according to the ACLU.