Utah’s denied status as a” sanctuary state” has recently received attention from governoral member Phil Lyman’s plan communication.
The state senator, who is running in the Democratic major against Gov. Because ICE ( U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ) officers cannot detain immigrants who break the law after spending extended periods of time in county jails, Spencer Cox claimed Utah is effective as a sanctuary state.
According to Lyman,” It’s a properly deserved accusation because Utah is being responsible with the federal government specifications,” he told the Deseret News. We’re letting people go because we ca n’t detain them in Utah under the federal standards, rather than arresting and detaining those who violate Utah’s laws.
In October, a leaked letter from ICE’s Salt Lake City Field Office made the strange decision to designate Utah as a shelter status. According to the letter, state officers ‘ “non-detention policies” led to the discharge of 67 % of ICE prisoners again into Utah populations in Fiscal Year 2023.
The note was immediately refiled after condition law enforcement and elected officials claimed it was “misleading” and obfuscated ICE’s authority to consider holding facilities for incarcerated immigrants. Riverton Mayor and U.S. Senate candidate Trent Staggs received criticism for supporting it.
Gov. The logo has been vehemently rejected by Spencer Cox.
During a virtual town house in March, Cox remarked,” Utah is never a monastery condition, it has never been a shelter condition, it will never be a sanctuary condition.” And anyone who tells you then is lying to you because they want to use fear and division to try to become powerful.
Is Utah a temple position?
The Center for Immigration Studies still considers Utah to be a sanctuary position. The “pro- immigrant, lower- immigration” think tank cites the absence of ICE detention centers in the state and Utah’s expat- friendly policies, like driving privilege cards, child health insurance, in- state college tuition and workplace licensing for illegal migrants, as justification for the designation.
However, according to University of Nevada Las Vegas professor Michael Kagan, one of the nation’s foremost experts on immigration law, having an official policy of limiting” cooperation with ICE enforcement, especially in relation to the criminal justice system” has always been a prerequisite for being a sanctuary state or sanctuary city.
” Utah would never be thought of as a sanctuary state”, Kagan said.
Utah law specifically mandates that state law enforcement work with ICE when apprehending immigrants who break the law after entering the country illegally.
According to Kagan, the now-retracted ICE memo describes” an operational problem that ICE is having in Utah” that does not meet the requirements of a sanctuary state. He called the move a “bizarre” attempt” by ICE to redefine what that label means”.
Following several Utah counties terminating contracts with the federal government that paid for detainees to be held in county jails that met ICE standards, the memo, written on May 31 by Salt Lake City Field Office Director Michael Bernacke, came after several Utah counties terminated those contracts.
According to Mike Smith, Utah County Sheriff and president of the Utah Sheriffs ‘ Association, it became impossible for county sheriff departments to adhere to new Biden administration rules that required completely different, and frequently “ridiculous, treatment of civil ICE detainees compared to regular criminal inmates.
The 700- page- long list of ICE standards included having separate entrances, as well as a specific type of hair cut and hand lotion, that must be used for ICE detainees, Smith said. According to Smith, Utah County law enforcement sued them if ICE- contracted jails failed to adhere to these standards, which was something that happened on at least once.
According to Smith, no county in Utah has a current agreement with ICE to hold detainees for this reason. However, this does not imply that ICE can release violent criminals who are not citizens.
According to Smith, illegal immigrants who are detained for criminal offenses are held in Utah jails and processed through the Utah justice system like any other offender.
He said,” I have people in my jail right now who are illegal immigrants who have broken state laws and are currently in jail for those violations.” ” Those criminal charges pass through our state courts the same way they would for anyone else.”
Following their time in the criminal justice system, migrants who have broken the law are usually turned over to, or “arrested” by, ICE, Smith and Kagan explained, and then should be kept in ICE detention facilities for civil proceedings including deportation.
Even if there are no ICE detention facilities in the state, that does n’t mean ICE is forced to release detainees, they said.
According to Kagan, “ICE has an extremely large budget that was just actually increased to basically pay for detention spaces all over the country.” ” Once someone is in ICE custody, ICE can move them across state boundaries, they do that all the time, that’s perfectly regular”.
According to Kagan, there are three ICE detention facilities in southern Nevada that frequently house immigrants who have been transported by ICE from Utah. He does n’t understand the reasoning behind ICE’s memo in Utah. As it is for Smith.
Should Utah take more action to stop illegal immigrants entering the country?
” We’ve hit a brick wall with ICE”, Smith said. ” They’re trying to shift the blame to say,’ It’s the sheriff’s fault.’ And it has never been our responsibility. They write this false and upsetting memo claiming that we do have no statutory obligation to do our work for them.
On multiple occasions, Utah law enforcement officers have met with ICE to try and fix their detention- space problem, Smith said. Sheriffs in Utah have even suggested that ICE would pay rent to the vacant Daggett County facility and Weber County facility for ICE detentions.
” We’ve told them that multiple times and it falls on deaf ears”, Smith said.
Lyman is aware that ICE is unable to rely on it to enforce immigration laws because of federal government policies. But Utah leaders should n’t use bureaucratic dysfunction as an excuse not to address the problem, Lyman said.
” It’s an executive decision about policy”, he said.
Lyman argued that Utah should take a stronger stance against immigration law enforcement, holding and deporting people without the assistance of ICE, as Texas has done.
However, according to Kagan, the new Texas law that allows local police to arrest and deport migrants suspected of crossing the border illegally is currently being litigated in federal court.
According to Kagan,” [t]he Supreme Court would be unconstitutional if that kind of effort by Utah is done by the Supreme Court because immigration enforcement is a solely federal domain.” According to current Supreme Court case law, states cannot intervene to begin detaining and deporting people.
