More Signs That Utah Gets It

A welcomed piece from the Salt Lake Tribune.

The 47th Congress was a busy bunch of bigots. In March of 1882, they passed the Edmunds Act, a notorious anti-Mormon law that barred polygamists from voting, serving on juries or holding office. This law (along with related statutes) sent hundreds of Mormon men into federal prison and shattered families across Mormon country.

Barely a month later, that same Congress passed another odious law. Called the Chinese Exclusion Act, it was the first major federal immigration law, and it was explicitly designed to keep out the despised Asian immigrants. It set the framework for the draconian approach to immigration that continues to this day.

Both the hateful immigration laws and hateful anti-Mormon laws were challenged in court. The racist Supreme Court of the era upheld both laws in close succession, with telling language that compared Mormons to Asians. Apparently, that was reason enough to allow persecution of both groups.

This tainted history is just one reason why some Latter-day Saints like me are troubled by current immigration laws and proposals. Today’s harsh laws and harsher proposals are a direct legacy of the most hateful anti-Mormon legislators of the late 19th century.

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Little by little, a more expansive coalition of people are uniting to fight back against the modern day haters. The country is bound to repeat the shameful mistakes of the past as long as groups who were targets in the past, forget that they or their ancestors once wore the shoes of those slated for exploitation and ridicule. Very promising that more public factions of the LDS community are speaking out against the xenophobes.

 

Utah Legislature Rethinks Hardline Strategy

Last week, Wyoming was on track to approve a package of hardlined anti-migrant legislation, but the measure was ultimately defeated by political pressure to take a more humane approach to reform – one that incorporates human rights and economic concerns into the fold as deliberations are made. The same type of political push-back appears to have also worked in Utah, for the time being.

Senators are reworking parts of a comprehensive immigration package to make the measure more palatable to the business community and religious leaders, its sponsor said Tuesday.

Sen. Bill Hickman, R-St. George, said he pushed back the Senate debate on his SB81 — scheduled Tuesday — until Thursday because some of the refinements to his anti-illegal immigration bill are still being made.

“We’re trying to get this bill to be a reasonable piece of legislation that is [as] business friendly as possible and yet maintains the standards we have set forth in the bill and I think we are at that point now,” Hickman said.

The revised measure would be a far cry from the original version modeled after an Oklahoma immigration law described as one of the toughest in the nation.

The changes would include revisions requested by leaders from several churches, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that protect the church from liability if they provide food, clothing and other charitable or humanitarian services to undocumented immigrants.

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What we are starting to see on the state level is coalition building among pro-migrant forces that can be more effective when it comes to driving the agenda of local legislators. Groups of human rights advocates, churches, business leaders, ethnic equality committees, etc. are learning to use their voices in concert that prevent disastrous effects like we’re seeing here in the Grand Canyon State.

PHOENIX — The signs of flight among Latino immigrants here are multiple: Families moving out of apartment complexes, schools reporting enrollment drops, business owners complaining about fewer clients.

While it is too early to know for certain, a consensus is developing among economists, business people and immigration groups that the weakening economy coupled with recent curbs on illegal immigration are steering Hispanic immigrants out of the state.

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