This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The verb "trump" means to win by deploying a valuable resource. Interestingly, as 2016 begins, the main person Donald Trump may be trumping is himself.
This past year, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination made headlines for his extreme policy prescriptions around immigration, each one more inflammatory than the next. And that may just be his downfall.
First, Trump took aim at immigrants from Mexico. When he announced his presidential run, Trump described them as drug runners and rapists, and blamed them for growing welfare abuse and even the lack of women working in STEM fields in the U.S.
Then, in November, Trump pledged that — if elected — he would round up and deport more than 11 million men, women and children living in the U.S. unlawfully "so fast that your head will spin."
Finally, in December Trump called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."
Such radical policy prescriptions might be deadly for Trump's political campaign.
To understand why, we need go no further than our own state. Utah saw considerable migration flows in the 1990s, with a 174 percent increase in the foreign-born population in the Salt Lake City-Ogden metropolitan area. As our economy boomed, legislation — such as House Bill 36 and House Bill 144 — made it easier for immigrants to safely drive, work and study.
However, in the 2000s, this welcoming policy environment turned negative. This came to a head in 2008 when the state Legislature passed Senate Bill 81, one of the nation's most punitive immigration bills. Among other things, SB81 sought to enlist state and local law enforcement officers to carry out immigration law. During the debate, one legislator blamed undocumented immigrants for "violent crimes, human smuggling, gang activity, sex offenses, money laundering and drug trafficking."
These policies, plus headline-making immigration raids — including the 2006 Hyrum meatpacking plant raid and the 2008 raid on a metal factory in Lindon — exemplified a transformation of Utah's political climate against immigrants.
How did this change the political behavior of foreign-born residents?
Utilizing state data, a team of scholars I headed studied the voting records of 9,304 foreign-born citizens in Utah over that transformative decade. What we found was revealing.
As Utah's political climate became more hostile, naturalized citizens from Latin America went to the polls in unprecedented numbers, with voter turnout in 2006, 2007 and 2008 surpassing every other election of the previous decade. Comparing the foreign-born voter turnout in 2004 versus 2008, we discovered that the odds of voting increased more than four-fold. Interestingly, much of this increase was gendered. In 2008, Latina immigrants were almost twice as likely as their male counterparts to vote that year.
So, Trump, when you attack people, they don't back down. Targeting a group of people — say immigrants, or Muslims — helps create identity. It connects people in a new way. Today, there are nearly 40 million foreign-born citizens living in the U.S., comprising approximately 13 percent of the U.S. population. And Islam is the third largest faith in the U.S. Those are pretty big voting blocs to alienate.
A big boost in voter turnout from immigrants and Muslims could make a dramatic difference nationally, even beyond the presidential race: 12 states will elect a governor and 34 U.S. Senate seats and all 435 U.S. House seats are up for grabs in 2016. And every state will witness many local and state races.
Trump — the most strident, but unfortunately not the only anti-immigrant politician — has placed a target on an important segment of the population. But if Utah's voting history is a predictor of things to come, the victims of his belligerence may just return the favor – at the ballot box.
Julie Stewart is an associate professor of Sociology at Westminster College who specializes in research on immigration and inequality.