Voices: How Utah law enforcement can avoid politics and provide leadership on immigration enforcement

Utah law enforcement leaders have offered only limited, intermittent public communication on immigration. That absence is a public safety problem.

A few sheriffs and associations have issued statements, often tied to 287(g) agreements or specific incidents, but sustained statewide communication has been scarce.

As a former Utah sheriff and police chief with nearly 40 years in law enforcement, I recently wrote in my local paper, The Times-Independent in Moab, to lower the temperature and provide some answers. That approach works only if sheriffs and chiefs across the state speak plainly, and act quickly before fear and rumor set the rules.

We have not come to where we are overnight. It moved the way big institutional shifts often do: slowly, then all at once.

Initially, there was an indicator that should unsettle every working cop: Political pressure was applied inside federal law enforcement. In early 2025, senior Federal Bureau of Investigation executives and personnel tied to Jan. 6 prosecutions were forced out. However you vote, that kind of purge changes how agencies behave.

Then there was buildup. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act directs more than $75 billion in supplemental funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement through 2029, including $45 billion for detention capacity. Analysts estimate this will result in additional 10,000 new ICE agents and that interior immigration detention expansion could reach well over 100,000 beds, approaching the scale of the current federal prison system.

Then came the deployments. Aggressive federal immigration enforcement actions entered multiple jurisdictions.

And then there was Minnesota. Operation Metro Surge flooded Minneapolis with thousands of federal personnel, forcing local leaders, schools and businesses to react in real time with no shared playbook.

Now perhaps the most dangerous shift is underway: A change in constitutional practice by administrative memo. A DHS memo on May 12, 2025, asserts that ICE officers may rely on an I-205 “administrative warrant” to enter a home. Brennan Center for Justice and others describe this as a sharp break from longstanding guidance and core Fourth Amendment principles, and The Associated Press has reported guidance from ICE that contemplates authorizing forced entries.

This is where local policing collides with federal momentum.

Every officer knows the bright line. A home is different. The government does not cross that threshold without consent, a real emergency or a warrant signed by a judge. When paperwork starts to substitute for a judge, the street becomes the courtroom. That is how you get unnecessary force, unlawful detention and lasting distrust. You also get local officers trapped beside a contested federal action, in full view of the public, with no clear guidance and no clean exit.

Utah cannot treat this as someone else’s crisis. Reporting shows fear and anger spreading well beyond major cities into smaller communities. And Utah’s economy runs on immigrant labor in agriculture, construction, tourism and hospitality.

When people are afraid, they stop reporting crimes. Witnesses vanish. Victims hesitate. Employers lose workers overnight. The whole community pays.

So what should Utah’s sheriffs and chiefs do? Avoid politics, and provide leadership.

Draw the line in writing.

Publish a short, plain-language policy that addresses three things: private space entry, detention and the constraints of local participation. Say whether your agency will assist with entry into a residence absent a judge-signed warrant, consent or exigency. Say what your officers will do if asked to prolong a detention to “buy time.” Define “keep the peace” so it does not quietly become “look away.”

Train to that line.

Provide your agency a joint-scene decision tree: What documents should officers request? What questions should they ask? What needs documenting? When should officers disengage?

Train de-escalation when the crowd is angry at the nearest uniform. Train supervisors to control the perimeter, protect life and keep your agency from being pulled across its own policy and constitutional boundary.

Prepare the places that will be caught in the middle.

Schools, hospitals, hotels, city buildings and large employers need a one-page protocol — one that defines who speaks for the facility, what spaces are private, what gets recorded and who calls counsel.

Order decreases improvisation. It also protects officers from making policy in a parking lot.

Protect crime reporting.

Tell immigrant communities, in public, what happens when they call 911, report a domestic assault or come forward as a witness. If your community believes every call becomes an immigration pipeline, you lose visibility and predatory criminals win.

I’m not asking local leaders to relitigate national immigration policy. That is not, nor has it ever been, our job. The role is simpler and harder: Protect your jurisdiction, protect your officers and defend the constitutional process that makes enforcement legitimate.

A decent society does not collapse because bad actors push. It collapses when steady people watch the line move and say nothing.

James Winder is the former Salt Lake County sheriff and chief of the Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake. He is also the former chief of investigations for the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office. He has more than 40 years of law enforcement experience in major metropolitan and rural agencies and now consults in the field.

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