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By a wide 2-1 margin, Utahns dislike President Barack Obama's recent executive orders to allow more undocumented immigrants to remain in the country, according to a new poll.

The poll released Monday by UtahPolicy.com found that 64.2 percent of Utahns surveyed disapprove Obama's actions. Just 33.2 percent support them. Another 2.6 percent were undecided.

"That's Utah," said Archie Archuleta, past president of Utah Coalition of La Raza. "Here in Utah, Democrats and Latinos applaud what Obama did not only on immigration but on Cuba. It's just that there aren't that many of us here."

A recent study by the Migration Policy Institute estimates that a higher percentage of undocumented immigrants in Utah could benefit from the executive orders than in any other state. It said 55 percent of them could be shielded from deportation, or about 48,000 people.

The majority in heavily Republican Utah likely opposes the executive actions for three reasons, theorizes Archuleta. "First, it's anti-Obama. Second, it's against executive orders that tweaked the Republican Party…. And on immigration, there's just a solid tinge of racism in this state."

Ron Mortensen, co-founder of the Utah Coalition on Illegal Immigration, generally has views exactly opposite of Archuleta. But he agrees that poll results are likely mostly about Obama's unpopularity in Utah and his acting without congressional approval, noting other polls have shown that two-thirds of Utahns favor immigration reform.

"I think it [the new poll] is not saying where Utahns are on immigration reform. It's a specific reaction that Utahns do not like the president doing this by executive action. It probably doesn't help that the name 'Obama' is in there," Mortensen said.

But he said many like him view Obama's action as "taking people who have been committing multiple felonies for multiple years by document fraud and identity theft and giving them total amnesty."

In Mortensen's view it is double amnesty because "employers who have been illegally hiring these individuals also get amnesty along with them. They get to keep their employees in a legal status now without penalty."

Arturo Morales Llan, an activist against illegal immigration who is a member of the state Republican Central committee, also said he believes the poll is mostly "about Obama creating a new rule of law" unilaterally.

"That is a power that belongs to Congress. This is unconstitutional," he said. "We need to fix immigration with something everyone can agree with. Otherwise we will back to the same problems in five or 10 years."

The poll numbers should be welcome to Utah politicians who have been condemning Obama's immigration orders.

For example, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes decided to join 16 other states in a lawsuit challenging the legality of those orders, and was supported in that by Gov. Gary Herbert.

Reyes said the lawsuit was not about immigration policy. "This process is what is being challenged. The process is not legal. Regardless how you feel about the policy, it does not justify implementation in an unconstitutional manner."

Also, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, helped force the U.S. Senate into a rare Saturday session for an unsuccessful vote attempting to block Obama's actions. Critics blame that for also allowing votes to confirm several Obama nominees, although Lee disagrees.

The new poll of 609 registered voters was conducted Dec. 2-10, and has a margin of error of 4 percent.

The question it asked was: "President Obama has signed an executive order making a number of changes in the immigration system, including providing a way for many undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States. Do you agree or disagree with the president's actions?"