President-elect Donald Trump won reelection with about 60% of the vote in Utah. He has said he will carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history,” and his new pick for “border czar,” Tom Homan, has told immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally they better be “looking over [their] shoulder.”
Roughly 3% of Utah’s population is in the country illegally. Pew Research Center estimated the total at 110,000 in 2022, but it’s hovered around 100,000 since 2005. At the same time, the state’s total population increased from about 2.5 million to 3.4 million.
Percentage-wise, the number of people in Utah illegally mirrors the country as a whole, according to Pew.
Mexicans account for more than half that number, according to both Pew and the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
“This is a population that's potentially more easily identifiable than in other places where there's a greater diversity of nationalities and industry of employment,” said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications at MPI.
It may also be easier for the U.S. government to deport people from certain countries, including Mexico, because of their diplomatic relations.
And similar to the rest of the nation, people in Utah illegally are more apt to be of working age than the U.S. population as whole. Mittelstadt said that’s because they don’t have access to the social safety net.
Immigrants in the country illegally may access some benefits like emergency Medicaid, but they are barred from major programs including Social Security and Medicare. That’s despite contributing $235 million in state and local taxes in Utah in 2022, according to the left-leaning think tank Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
Regardless of their legal status, “they're our neighbors,” said Maria Montes, Director of Power Building at Comunidades Unidas, an advocacy organization for Latino immigrants in Utah.
“They're the people that our children go to school with. They are the people who build our buildings that we live in. They’re the people who are helping bring this giant economic boom to the state.”
The Migration Policy Institute estimates 20% of jobs held by immigrants who are in Utah illegally are in construction. Across the country, immigrants without legal status play a significant role in the industry, according to the advocacy group Immigration Forum. And Utah needs more construction workers to keep up with housing demand.
Many in Utah also work in service and manufacturing.
Montes said there’s fear, frustration and anger among the primarily working-class immigrant population her organization serves. Beyond deportation, people are afraid of raids at workplaces or schools, she said.
Comunidades Unidas launched the Salt Lake County Immigrant People’s Agenda in November 2023, in part because they “didn't really see a drastic change in immigration policy” under President Joe Biden, said Montes.
The country saw the highest number of removals for any given year since 2010 under Biden, in part due to a sharp increase in the number of times people tried to cross the border illegally.
“We recognized that there was no elected official at the federal, state or local level that was going to come and fight for the interests of working class immigrants like we ourselves could,” said Montes.
The group surveyed local immigrants about the issues important to them and decided to focus on four points: standing up to gentrification, educating day laborers on their rights, lobbying against the Salt Lake County Jail’s cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and advocating for a high school on Salt Lake City’s west side.
While Montes said some people she works with feel they’ve survived one Trump administration and can survive another, she said others feel this time will be different.
“This time around, [Trump] has prepared, has created a plan and a strategy, has found allies to support his plan and his strategy and to carry it out.”
Mittelstadt said the Biden administration focused its deportation and removal efforts on those with criminal records, but the incoming Trump administration has signaled a different approach.
“This administration that's coming in is going to return to something that prevailed during the first Trump administration, which was this idea that they wanted people peering over their shoulders and being nervous that they themselves could be the next person to face deportation,” she said.
One of those allies, Homan, was involved in family separation policies during the first Trump administration. More than one-third of immigrants in Utah illegally live with a minor who’s a citizen, and one in eight are married to a citizen, according to the MPI report. While Montes is concerned about mixed-status families being separated, Homan’s view is that “families can be deported together.”
“I think this incoming administration is going to have the view that any U.S. citizen, children or others in the family, can elect to leave with whoever is being deported,” said Mittelstadt.
Montes said Comunidades Unidas is taking Trump’s campaign promises about immigration seriously.
“We're prepared to stand up and to fight back for the safety and the well-being of Utah's immigrants,” she said.
Macy Lipkin is a Report for America corps member who reports for KUER in northern Utah.
