As anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests erupt around the country, and while Congress debates funding for the Department of Homeland Security, state lawmakers are considering a series of bills that would affect the lives of immigrants already living in Utah.
With the Legislature in session, several Republicans are pushing for bills that would stop some immigrants from accessing public benefits, repeal state immigration programs, impose an additional tax on some foreign monetary transmissions and do away with driving privilege cards.
It’s an anti-immigration push that goes against the “Utah way,” Rep. Hoang Nguyen, D-Salt Lake City, told The Salt Lake Tribune in an interview.
“Taking care of one another has always been the true Utah way, regardless of who was at the federal level,” she said. “We created a really special bubble here. … I fear what’s happening now is Utah is starting to give into the national realm.”
Among the suite of immigration-related bills, perhaps the most controversial is sponsored by Rep. Trevor Lee, R-Layton, who aims to end public benefits for all undocumented immigrants.
The bill, HB88, would prevent people in the country illegally from accessing the supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, known as WIC, meal delivery programs for seniors, vaccination efforts, housing assistance, homeless services, communicable disease treatment and potentially other public services.
“We give benefits to those who are not citizens of our country, and I believe that’s wrong,” Lee said in an interview with The Tribune last month. “I think we have enough problems. We have Utahns who need help, who are struggling, who can barely afford their bills, and we shouldn’t be allocating taxpayer funding of any sort, at least on the state side, to those who are noncitizens.”
Ciriac Alvarez Valle, a senior policy analyst at Voices for Utah Children, a nonprofit advocating for children’s health and immigrant families, said in an interview that she is concerned the bill could have wide-ranging consequences.
“What it does is take programs … like vaccines, like communicable disease testing and treatment, and makes it so that someone has to be lawfully present to use some of these services,” Alvarez Valle said. “And that’s just going to make us all unhealthier.”
Additionally, she is concerned the bill could impact U.S. citizens, including people trying to escape domestic violence situations who may not have documents to prove their lawful citizenship or the citizen children of undocumented people who may need to access public benefits.
“How are we going to deal with all of these other implications, all because we want to be punitive towards immigrants?” Alvarez Valle asked.
Nguyen, whose family immigrated to the United States from Vietnam, agreed.
“As a beneficiary of those programs when I was younger, I see the need, she said. “I see how hard it is for families who are just trying to work and feed their kids, and when you take away those programs for the most vulnerable, it just doesn’t make any sense.”
Another bill, HB471, sponsored by Rep. Logan Monson, R-Blanding, would, among other things, require that state agencies verify the immigration status of applicants for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps or SNAP. If the applicant is identified as being in the country illegally, the bill would require the department to report the applicant to ICE.
“The intent of HB471 simply puts Utah in compliance with federal code,” Monson said in a text message. A substitute to the bill with some changes, he said, was in the works.
‘It’s a bad idea’
Lee also is sponsoring HB287, which would end the driving privilege card program, which allows undocumented people to obtain a driving credential in Utah. It is another bill that Alvarez Valle said she is concerned about for both safety and logistical reasons.
“It’s a bad idea to take 35,000 people off the road [and] take away their legal ability to drive,” she said, adding that it will encourage people to drive without a license.
Asked for comment on his immigration bills last week, Lee, in a text message, told a separate Tribune reporter, “Not sure why anyone would talk to you. If Utahns wants [sic] real news they’ll go somewhere that does actual journalism.”
While Lee’s bill to end the driving privilege program has yet to be assigned to a committee, his bill to strip people in the country illegally of access to public benefits has been assigned to the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee, signaling some appetite among lawmakers to move the legislation forward.
And on Monday, Lee introduced HB571, a wide-ranging piece of anti-immigration legislation that would, among other things: prevent people in the country illegally from accessing housing affordability assistance programs; require state and local governmental agencies to “use the agency’s best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law;” and make people in the country illegally ineligible for workers’ compensation.
And, with three weeks left in the 2025 legislative session, some other bills of concern to advocates have begun to move through the Legislature.
Nguyen spoke on the House floor last week against HB141, a bill sponsored by Rep. Stephanie Gricius, R-Eagle Mountain, which would impose a 2% tax on international money transmissions unless the sender could show certain forms of ID, which ultimately passed the House 58-15.
Gricius has advocated that the bill is a way to prevent human trafficking and drug-related transactions, but Nguyen and others argued it will ultimately function as a tax on immigrant families.
“When we put a tax on the communities like this, it really does hurt people who are just trying to send money home to families,” Nguyen said. “It’s the lifeline to be able to support your families back at home in countries where they don’t have the mobility that America has. … I just don’t think it’s really trying to solve [the problem] the sponsor’s trying to solve.”
Gricius did not respond to a request to comment on her legislation.
Avoiding a federal lawsuit
Another immigration-related bill, HB386, sponsored by Rep. Lisa Shepherd, R-Provo, would repeal the Guest Worker Program, as well as the Utah Pilot Sponsored Resident Immigrant Program Act.
The two programs, which aimed to allow some foreign workers to legally live and work in Utah, were signed into law by then-Gov. Gary Herbert in 2011. But the laws were not officially enacted, as the state required a federal waiver to do so. As a result, the Legislature moved the implementation date of both programs to 2027.
“We’re not going to get a waiver from the federal government,” Shepherd told The Tribune in an interview. “I’m looking to remove it [from state code] because we can’t enact them anyway.”
Without a waiver, if the programs were to go into effect next year, the state would be sued, Shepherd said, which she hopes to avoid with her bill.
“I’m not really talking about the policy, whether it’s good or bad policy,” she said. “I’m talking about the fact that we don’t have the authority to set federal immigration policy.”
The passage of the bills at the time, Shepherd added, seemed like a “messaging bill.”
“I understand the intentions were really good,” she said. “This is just about the fact that we can’t do it.”
The onus, she said, is on the federal government to take up immigration reform.
“If by chance they want to take a look at what Utah’s done and see if that’s great, the language that’s in our code … then maybe, perhaps there’s a solution,” she said.
On this, at least, some advocates agree.
“Without federal immigration reform. I think a lot of people are feeling the pressure and a lot of worries and frustrations, both immigrants and nonimmigrants,” Alvarez Valle said. “What do we do? How do we cope with a lack of immigration reform?”
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