Note to readers • The Salt Lake Tribune is making this story free to all.
Para leer este artículo en español, haz clic aquí.
Shortly after President Donald Trump tightened his stance on increasing deportations and enacted a slew of policies to do so, Holy Cross Ministries’ phones wouldn’t stop ringing.
Lorina Tester — an attorney, and the nonprofit’s director of immigration programs — said callers asked if their kids could be taken away, or what would happen to their children if they were deported.
But on Monday, as a paralegal for the ministry worked to return calls to concerned people who had reached out, Tester said “nobody picked up.”
“It’s almost like there’s been this chilling effect, where people are afraid to call or to answer the phone,” she said.
People are terrified of sending their kids to school and scared of taking them to get a flu shot, she said.
Around the state, many have taken to social media to share when they’ve either spotted or heard of agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — better known as “ICE” — questioning staff, gathering in parking lots or stopping cars.
“It’s really difficult to say what’s accurate and what isn’t at this point,” Tester said.
The nonprofit’s CEO, Emmie Gardner, who also serves on the Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs’ volunteer Utah Multicultural Commission, said she hopes any enforcement in the state remains focused on immigrants without legal status who also have criminal backgrounds, which she said makes up the vast minority.
“We want to keep a safe community and a safe environment,” she said. “What we are trying to do also — in our philosophy of Utah, and being a very family-friendly state — is to say you cannot just equate ‘immigrant’ with ‘criminal.’”
Nationally, ICE is tightening its efforts in detaining people without legal residency status, and while they’re reportedly targeting those with criminal backgrounds, others can get arrested in the process, The Associated Press has reported.
Tester said these “collateral arrests” can happen as a consequence of targeted deportation actions — people who may be in the wrong place at the wrong time, people who are “too brown” in an environment where it’s easy to “profile and separate people.”
“Those are the people that really suffer,” she said.
Salt Lake City immigration attorney Linh Tran-Layton told The Salt Lake Tribune she believes everyone in the country who is considered undocumented “should all be concerned.”
If someone is here illegally “they’ve broken a law and they can be detained” and be “put into removal proceedings,” she said.
What can people do now to prepare?
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) People gather on the steps of the Utah Capitol in support of immigrants for the Voices Ignited Rally on Wednesday, Jan 29, 2025.
As many face heightened concern, Tester identified steps people can take now to prepare for the potential of facing ICE agents or the possibility of being detained or deported.
If eligible, the first thing Tester recommended doing is to apply for citizenship.
The second is to keep all important documents together and in an easily accessible place in case you are detained.
Third, parents worried about what could happen to their children if they are detained can prepare power of attorney documents to make sure they have an appropriate caregiver who can legally make decisions in a parent’s absence.
Generally, Gardner and Tester said other steps fall in line with regular emergency plans. If someone’s detained, will their family have what they need? How will bills or rent get paid? Will people have their medication?
Tester for instance recommended that parents try to find out under what circumstances their children’s doctors will refill a prescription in case the parent is detained and their kid needs a refill.
She added that people should never provide, or even carry, false documents — which will make things worse.
If someone is undocumented, deciding who to trust with that information when trying to prepare for potential detainment is “a very personal decision based on what’s at stake,” Gardner said. Tester also warned of the potential for fraud or scams as vulnerable people look for security and resources amid rapidly changing policy.
People can find reliable information on where to obtain legal advice at the Utah Immigrant Advocacy Coalition website, which Gardner said was created by several nonprofits and others working “to empower our immigrant community.”
What to do if you are detained or approached by ICE
If ICE comes knocking, claiming that they have a warrant, that doesn’t always mean they have a warrant to enter the property.
According to Tran-Layton, search warrants have to be signed by a judge, and ICE deportation warrants are not the same thing. The National Immigration Law Center has free breakdowns available to help people understand the visual difference between such documents.
“If that’s all they have,” Tran-Layton said of ICE deportation warrants, “they can’t legally go inside unless you verbally agree to let them in.”
If an agent asserts that they have a warrant signed by a federal or state court judge, you are allowed to ask to see it through a window, or have them slide it under a door.
Without a valid judge’s signature and accurate identifying information, “you don’t have to open the door,” she said.
Tran-Layton said she believes that people often mistakenly let law enforcement officers in because they’re scared and aren’t sure what to do, making the officers “feel like they have more authority to do what they want to do once they’re given permission to go inside.”
If you are detained, Tran-Layton said you can ask to speak with a lawyer, and if you are taken into custody, you have the right to call an attorney.
She emphasized that perhaps the most important thing people can do is refrain from signing documents given to them by ICE.
“They might be signing away to get deported,” she said. “They should definitely talk to an immigration attorney before they sign anything, before they disclose anything to ICE officers.”
If someone is detained, she said, loved ones or others can locate them using ICE’s online detainee locator.
What to do if ICE shows up at your workplace
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) People gather on the steps of the Utah Capitol in support of immigrants for the Voices Ignited Rally on Wednesday, Jan 29, 2025.
Much of ICE’s workplace enforcement happens through I-9 investigations, where employers are required to hand over identifying documents confirming the legal status of their employees, Tester said.
She said employers can face criminal and civil penalties if they don’t have the proper I-9 documents.
“If enforcement wants to punish employers to say, ‘You shouldn’t be hiring or attracting or maintaining relationships with undocumented workers,’” Tester said, “this is another really effective way to do it.”
To prepare for such investigations, she said employers can make sure they have their I-9s on hand and preemptively speak with an attorney.
In industries that ICE is more likely to assume undocumented immigrants are working — at restaurants, golf courses, hotels and in tourism — she said agents are more likely to show up in person without telling the employer.
Ciriac Alvarez, a senior policy analyst for the nonprofit Voices for Utah Children, said it can be good to speak with employers about a plan in case ICE comes by.
She suggested that certain staff members could be prepared to act as a point of contact, knowing ahead of time not divulge any information that they don’t need to.
“It’s a little bit different if it’s a public area,” she said. “But within the actual private area, they do need to have a judicial warrant signed by a judge, and it has to say U.S. District Court or state court at the top.”
To protect employees, Tester said, employers can clearly post which areas are public and private. They can also have policies about who is allowed to share employee information and who in the business should be contacted about any ICE requests.
Even if someone is considered high enough in a chain of command to release information, she said they are still likely to get in touch with their employer first before doing so to make sure they’re acting lawfully. They might not be able to give out certain information.
Often, she said, ICE agents will ask about worker schedules in order to try and pick up someone outside of a workplace. From what she’s seen in the past, she said, ICE would rather detain people on the street than in a home or business.
‘Your friends, your neighbors, your family’
Gardner said Holy Cross Ministries has been in Utah for almost 30 years, initially founded by “a fierce, feisty social justice group of Catholic nuns” after they sold off hospitals that they used to manage.
Wanting to invest that revenue into an important Utah cause, she said a listening tour helped them identify a need among the state’s immigrant population — in which they found many survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking and sexual assault.
Now, Gardner said Holy Cross Ministries works to humanize immigrants.
The state of Utah has about 299,800 immigrant residents, the American Immigration Council has determined, according to 2022 data. Of those, 114,200 were considered undocumented.
“These are your friends, your neighbors, your family,” she said. “Can we come back to just assuming good intent and being good humans to one another?”
Clarification • Jan. 30, 4:50 p.m.: The story has been updated to clarify that Holy Cross Ministries CEO Emmie Gardner separately sits on the Utah Multicultural Commission as a volunteer, which is housed under the Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs.
