U-T Editorial: Utah takes on immigration reform

By Union-Tribune Editorial Board
Monday, March 14, 2011 at midnight

First came Arizona with its ill-conceived, constitutionally suspect and explosively divisive law cracking down on illegal immigrants. Then came a passel of other states with copycat proposals, plans targeting illegal immigrants in public universities and attempts to deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.

And now comes Utah, but with a big twist.

Both houses of the Republican-controlled Legislature in Salt Lake City earlier this month passed a package of bills that seek to tighten enforcement against undocumented migrants while also recognizing that some businesses in the state depend on immigrant labor. Political leaders also hope to avoid the legal and political land mines that blew up in Arizona.

As outlined by The New York Times, the Utah balancing act includes a requirement, somewhat akin to Arizona’s, that local police check the immigration status of anyone arrested for a felony or a serious misdemeanor. But it also includes a measure creating a state guest worker program allowing undocumented immigrants who can prove they’ve been working in the state, and who pass a criminal-background check and agree to a fine of up to $2,500, to work there legally. And yet another part of the package would actually create a partnership between Utah and the Mexican state of Nuevo León to bring temporary farm workers to Utah. And, rather than confronting the federal government, a la Arizona, the Utah legislation requires the governor to negotiate with officials in Washington, D.C., for a waiver that would permit the state guest worker program. If no federal waiver has been granted by 2013, the Utah program would go into effect anyway.

The package, which has the endorsement of the highly influential Mormon church, is expected to be signed by Republican Gov. Gary Herbert.

Frankly, this editorial board respects the approach of Utah officials who recognize not just the problem of illegal immigration, but also the cause of it as well as the need for immigrant labor.

But there is a larger principle that is highlighted by the Utah legislation and all the other state efforts. It is that the federal government, while vigorously maintaining on one hand that immigration is a federal issue and that individual states are constitutionally prohibited from acting alone, is on the other hand abdicating its responsibility to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

It is not good enough for the Democrat in the White House to simply tell Arizona and other states that they cannot do what they are doing. It is not good enough for the Republicans who control the House of Representatives to say they will only support tougher enforcement measures. And it is not good enough for leaders of either party to say that illegal immigration is too politically sensitive to deal with now.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011 ... on-reform/