Saturday, 26 January 2008
2 bills target illegal immigration
DAILY HERALD
Joe Pyrah

The lack of federal initiative on the immigration issue has led to a knock-down drag-out debate at the state level.

Two bills touching on the issue, one subtly and the other overtly, were bandied about a legislative committee and the public Friday.

First, the most hotly debated:

Senate Bill 237 sponsored by Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden, would allow local police to enforce federal immigration laws if they so choose. It would allow them to attend five weeks of immigration-law training, which would then allow them to enforce federal law at their judgment.

"We don't have too many ICE agents here," said Donnelson, who has been running the bill for years and was referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Opponents say the state doesn't have enough regular officers and that any time spent enforcing federal laws is time spent away from enforcing state laws. Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank said he opposes the bill, as do most of the police departments in major cities across the United States. They feel immigration is a federal issue.

He said he was also concerned that a law like this would break down neighborhood trust that police officers painstakingly build up, and fill up jails so fast it would become financially burdensome.

Generally, the only time local police will inquire about a person's immigration status is once they're booked into the Utah County Jail, said Utah County Sheriff Jim Tracy in a November interview. Once people are arrested or charged with a crime, deputies will determine their nationality, citizenship and immigration status. If someone is in the country illegally, that information will be passed along to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"At that point in time, you've got to know who you're dealing with. If we find that they're illegally here, we turn them over to immigration and then they come [get them]," Tracy said.

The Utah County Sheriff's Office gets frequent inquiries about its policies, and Tracy said many people don't realize that deputies won't arrest them for being undocumented.

Rep. Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace, is unimpressed with federal immigration enforcement, as are his constituents.

"Overwhelmingly, they tell us to do something about this, and when I hear the Salt Lake Police Department say 'Don't', that confuses me," he said.

He fired back on the jail issue as well, asking Burbank if Utah law is decided on how full the jails are. That brought nods and a round of cheers from bill supporters in the crowd, including members of the Utah Minuteman Project.

"I'm glad I moved my family to Sandy," said Jeff Novak, who was at the meeting as a citizen and is in favor of the bill. "If I were illegal I think I would want to live in Salt Lake ... right next to the police chief."

Opponents also brought up fears that other crimes would go unreported because witnesses or victims would fear being deported.

"This does exactly the opposite by jeopardizing public safety," said Salt Lake County Assessor Lee Gardner, who was representing a Hispanic coalition and was not there in his official role.

Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, said the federal government has failed at immigration reform.

"Unless we start on the state level, we're never going to take care of that," he said, which again brought nods and approval.

The committee pushed the bill to the House floor for debate by an 8-3 vote. It was opposed by all three Democrats.

The other bill is Karen Morgan's document-fraud bill. A substitute version of the bill now calls for funding for two additional identity-theft investigators in the Attorney General's Office.

Minority advocate Tony Yapias said it's an immigration bill disguised as identity-theft protection.

"This bill does nothing more than attack the undocumented community," he said. "This is a problem that needs to be dealt with on a federal level."

Morgan, a Salt Lake City Democrat, disagreed.

"I want to make clear that this bill is not an attack on any group of individuals," she said.

Her bill passed through the committee unanimously and will be debated in the House.

HB 95

Sponsored by: Karen Morgan, D-Salt Lake City

Document Fraud - Establishing Legal Status: This bill would create a Document Fraud-Identity Theft Unit within the Office of the Attorney General to investigate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals and entities involved with identity theft or identity fraud.
HB 237


Sponsored by: Glenn A. Donnelson, R-North Ogden

Illegal Immigration Enforcement Act -- This bill would modify the Public Safety Code by providing for the enforcement of federal immigration laws by certain state or local law-enforcement officers.
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