Tagged: immigration

A state Senate committee voted Wednesday to push back the start date for Utah’s guest worker program by two years to give Congress a chance to work on comprehensive immigration reform.  

Utah’s guest worker program was set to go into effect this July, but Republican Senator Curt Bramble of Provo introduced Senate Bill 225 to postpone the implementation until 2015.  Bramble told the Senate Business and Labor committee that Utah’s guest worker law was designed to pressure the federal government into reforming immigration policy.

Arguments over Utah’s immigration enforcement law were heard in US District Court Friday.  It was the first hearing on the law in about a year.  Judge Clark Waddoups was waiting to rule on the constitutionality of HB 497 until after the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on Arizona’s enforcement-only law. 

Cecillia Wang is Director of the ACLU’s Immigrants Rights Project, and a lawyer in the case against HB 497.  Standing outside the US District Court in Salt Lake City after the hearing, Wang said the tide is turning in their favor. 

A Utah legislator tries to give more control to individual schools, speed limits on I-15 and I-80 could be getting higher, and Senator Orrin Hatch proposes a high-skilled immigration bill.

Democratic Congressman Jim Matheson made a visit to the legislature Thursday where he shared a list of things that he believes will help economic development.

He says the first task in encouraging economic development is eliminating uncertainty.

“You can’t eliminate all uncertainty of course but, when public policy multiplies the amount of uncertainty that’s out there, for the private sector, for the public sector, that’s a burden,” he says.

Salt Lake County residents voice their complaints about a proposed tax hike, Salt Lake City welcomes immigrants, and a former state legislator switches parties.

Astronomers at the University of Utah are looking for people to help identify distant stars, Utah’s Attorney General leads a delegation to Washington D.C. to discuss immigration reform, and Governor Herbert meets President Obama to discuss the fiscal cliff.

On the second anniversary of the state’s creation of the Utah Compact an agreement between local businesses and organizations that envisions a compassionate and economically positive solution to immigration reform, retiring Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff joined Utah business leaders this morning at the Salt Lake Chamber for a roundtable discussion on how Utah’s congressional delegation can push real immigration reform  on the federal level using the same principles espoused in the Utah’s compact.

Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Peter Cooke gathered leaders from Utah minority communities Friday to outline his policy on immigration in the state. 

Cooke praised leaders from the state’s Hispanic, Asian and Middle Eastern communities among others.  He pledged he would restore the state Office of Ethnic Affairs and pointed to the Utah Compact as guide for how his administration would handle immigration policy.

We reach number two on the list of Utah voters’ priorities, State School Superintendent Larry Shumway gives his last speech, and the legal battle over Utah’s immigration enforcement law could soon come to an end.

The long drawn out legal challenge over Utah’s immigration enforcement law House Bill 497 is nearing its end.  US District Court Judge Clark Waddoups could rule on the so-called “show me your papers law” any day now.  Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff gave an update at a meeting of the state’s Commission on Immigration and Migration Wednesday.

The non-partisan Utah Foundation surveys voters every election cycle to find out what issues concern them most.  It's called the Utah Priorities Project, and KUER is presenting a series of programs examining these issues with the help of Foundation researchers.

Talk to the candidates and they'll have a list of issues that they say their constituents respond to.  But Utah Foundation President Steve Kroes says the Utah Priorities Project lets voters set their own agenda.