Vazquez told the Immigration Interim Committee about a bright student he recruited from Logan High School, a bio-technology major who earned a 3.8 grade point average his first year at USU.
The student was forced to leave school in his second year after he opened the door to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, who were looking for his father as part of the raid on the Swift & Co. meat-packing plant. The son, brought to this country as a toddler, was arrested as well.
Now working construction while he awaits deportation to his native Guatemala, the former student's a "very sad story," said Vazquez.
He shared it with lawmakers, he said, to encourage them to remember that education is key to helping immigrants contribute.
"I have seen firsthand Latino, Hispanic youth taking advantage to become not a burden . . . to this great country, [but] to contribute and become better citizens," said Vazquez.
In the evening hearing, the interim committee was briefed on Senate Bill 81, the immigration reform measure that passed during the last session; heard from a Catholic priest whose parishioners' families were torn apart after in the Swift raid; and listened as the chairman of the Salt Lake Chamber's Immigration Task Force criticized aspects of SB 81.
An executive of Swift & Co., James Hamilton, director of company compliance, said meat-packing plants have been easy targets for immigration raids because, unlike on construction jobs, hundreds of immigrants are in one place at a time.
He also suggested that the highly publicized raids on Swift and other packers were designed by ICE to put pressure on Congress to finally fix the broken immigration system. "This is a lose, lose, lose," Hamilton said.
The main suggestion Hamilton had for lawmakers: "Rigorous enforcement of the ID card issued by the state of Utah is probably the most significant thing the state can do."
A number of residents urged lawmakers to crack down on illegal immigration.
Ron Mortensen of the Utah Coalition on Illegal Immigration told lawmakers that the identities of 50,000 children have been stolen, and many are used by immigrants to work unlawfully in this country.
"When you are looking at who is being victimized, who is being hurt, it goes beyond the illegal alien community," Mortensen said.
Richard Burgin, a Utah native who said he returned from southern California to get away from those in the country illegally, said the United States could solve its energy shortages by deporting the 10 million to 20 million undocumented immigrants.
But Dee Rowland, the government liaison for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, urged the committee to seek just reform of a broken immigration system.
"We need to resist proposals that emphasize enforcement at the expense of real reform," she said. "Punishing criminals is justice. That's a good thing. But turning poor people who seek a dignified existence for their families into criminals in order to punish them is not justice."
