Senate Bill 81
Watered-down immigration bill will idle a bit
It won't go into effect until July 2009, giving 'everyone time to adjust'
By Jennifer W. Sanchez
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 03/09/2008 01:16:18 AM MST

It started off as a comprehensive immigration bill that supporters hailed as one of the toughest in the nation. But by the time Utah lawmakers headed home last week at the end of the 2008 legislative session, SB81 was not only watered down, but pushed back on the calendar.

So, while community leaders say they are trying to figure out how, or if, their programs and organizations will be impacted by the bill, they won't have to rush. The proposed law doesn't take effect until July 2009.

"It's giving everyone time to adjust to it. But more importantly . . . I don't think many of the enforcers are prepared to enforce it," said Gonzalo Palza, CEO of Centro de la Familia de Utah, a nonprofit Latino advocacy agency.

As it stands, SB81 will force public employers and their contractors to verify the legal status of workers, and enlist local law enforcement agencies to help enforce federal immigration statutes. It will also be a Class A misdemeanor to conceal, harbor, transport or shelter undocumented immigrants, though church, charitable and humanitarian assistance groups are exempted.

Those exemptions did not exist in the original, harsher version of SB81, which also called for for the repeal of in-state college tuition for eligible undocumented students and was scheduled to take effect later this year. That led to a backlash against the bill from businesses and religious organizations, including the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce and the LDS Church.

Bill sponsor, Sen. Bill Hickman, R-St. George, said he realized there would be changes to the legislation and is mostly content with the final result - though he and other bill supporters wanted to see the proposed law enforced immediately and not delayed more than a year.

"As difficult as it is, other people have good ideas, too," Hickman said.
The amended version of SB81 passed by veto-proof majorities in both the Senate and House, and is expected to be signed into law by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

Ronald Mortensen, spokesman for Utah Coalition on Illegal Immigration, says the best part of SB81 is that public employers and contractors would have to start verifying the legal status of employees. He hopes the law is eventually amended to include all private businesses.

Mortensen believes the creation of a state office to investigate and prosecute identification fraud under SB81 represents another big step in stemming the flow of undocumented immigrants to Utah.

But opponents say the only good thing to come out of the Hickman bill was the year's delay. Antonella Romero Packard, spokeswoman for the Utah Hispanic/Latino Legislative Task Force, says that will give families with undocumented relatives a chance to get the help they need.

Beyond that, advocates for the undocumented community are concerned about a possible increase in racial profiling by cross-deputized officers. The fear: that families will no longer report crimes because they're afraid of being separated, Packard said.

"People would rather not report a heinous crime for the fear of being deported," she added.

Judy Kasten Bell, Utah Domestic Violence Council executive director, agrees, saying domestic violence victims rely on law enforcement for protection.

"The integration of immigration duties and law enforcement makes it very unlikely that an immigrant victim or witness of crime will report it to police, compromising both personal and public safety," she said in a statement.

Yet, some agencies that work with immigrants say SB81 will probably not affect them.

Corrie Jensen, with Futures Through Training, says that although an estimated 95 percent of farm workers in Utah are undocumented, her agency is federally mandated to verify their clients' legal status before they can receive any services, from job training to money for utility bills.

"So there's other places they have to go to get help when we can't help them," she said.

The Association for Utah Community Health, a nonprofit group that oversees community health clinics for low-income families statewide, receives less than two percent of its budget from state money, said Bette Vierra, the agency's executive director.

She says the clinics are exempt by the federal government from asking for a client's documentation status, so SB81 is not a big concern. However, she is unsure how agency programs that get funding from the state will be affected.

"We just don't know," she said. "An analysis will have to be done to see what was the legislative intent."

Those who administer about 6,000 students in the state's 13 Head Start programs are "cautiously optimistic" that they will not be affected by SB81 because they are mostly federally funded and don't have to verify their students' documentation status.

"We're mandated to help all children," said Nicole Droitsch, community partnerships manager with Salt Lake Community Action Program Head Start.

Local law enforcement agencies, who were largely opposed to SB81, will have to adapt now that the bill has passed. But some level of cooperation is already in place.

For instance, county sheriffs will now have to make an effort to check the documentation status of inmates in county jails, under the provisions of the bill. But Steven Branch, director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Field Office in Utah, says that is already occurring under the department's Criminal Alien Program - which allows county law enforcement agencies to contact ICE when they have a foreign-born suspect in custody. And Ogden City Police assistant chief Wayne Tarwater says his officers already work well with immigration agents on crime investigations, so he doubts the department would cross-deputize its employees as immigration agents. The department's focus is on crime, not randomly asking residents for their documentation status, he said.

"For the moment, we have a pretty good relationship going [with ICE]," Tarwater said. "We really don't have that need."

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