‘The Utah Way’: Conservative, Deep Red State ‘Most Welcoming’ for Illegal Immigrants

Driver ‘privilege’ licenses, ID cards, medical insurance for children, in-state college tuition and financial aid, swift occupational licensing, no 72-hour holds for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and a process to deflate some felonies into misdemeanors to delay deportation for illegal immigrants. Progressive California? Liberal New York? Democrat-dominated Illinois? No. Conservative Utah, where the Republican-dominated state legislature has assembled over the years an array of assistance programs for “eligible undocumented residents,” including DACA recipients, that rival those offered by sanctuary states. “For decades, deep red Republican Utah has avoided being labeled a sanctuary state although it is one of most welcoming states in the nation for illegal aliens,” Dr. Ronald Mortensen, a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer and former Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) senior executive, wrote in an Oct. 16, 2023, column for the Center for Immigration Studies....