Archive for December 6, 2010

John Osburn of Salt Lake City protests the intro­duc­tion of “Arizona-​​style” leg­is­la­tion by Utah Rep. Stephen Sand­strom (fore­ground). Photo: Deseret News

The Sun­day, Decem­ber 5, 2010, New York Times edi­to­r­ial page has a glow­ing review of the so-​​called “Utah Com­pact,” an immi­gra­tion reform pro­posal put for­ward by sev­eral Utah polit­i­cal, busi­ness and reli­gious leaders.

The Com­pact is in response to the intro­duc­tion of “Arizona-​​style” leg­is­la­tion by Rep. Stephen Sand­strom (R-​​Orem).

I’m sure we’ll be able to dis­cuss the mer­its of this pro­posal, repro­duced in full here:

FEDERAL SOLUTIONS: Immi­gra­tion is a fed­eral pol­icy issue between the U.S. gov­ern­ment and other coun­tries — not Utah and other coun­tries. We urge Utah’s con­gres­sional del­e­ga­tion, and oth­ers, to lead efforts to strengthen fed­eral laws and pro­tect our national bor­ders. We urge state lead­ers to adopt rea­son­able poli­cies address­ing immi­grants in Utah.

LAW ENFORCEMENT: We respect the rule of law and sup­port law enforcement’s pro­fes­sional judg­ment and dis­cre­tion. Local law enforce­ment resources should focus on crim­i­nal activ­i­ties, not civil vio­la­tions of fed­eral code.

FAMILIES: Strong fam­i­lies are the foun­da­tion of suc­cess­ful com­mu­ni­ties. We oppose poli­cies that unnec­es­sar­ily sep­a­rate fam­i­lies. We cham­pion poli­cies that sup­port fam­i­lies and improve the health, edu­ca­tion and well-​​being of all Utah children.

ECONOMY: Utah is best served by a free-​​market phi­los­o­phy that max­i­mizes indi­vid­ual free­dom and oppor­tu­nity. We acknowl­edge the eco­nomic role immi­grants play as work­ers and tax­pay­ers. Utah’s immi­gra­tion poli­cies must reaf­firm our global rep­u­ta­tion as a wel­com­ing and business-​​friendly state.

A FREE SOCIETY: Immi­grants are inte­grated into com­mu­ni­ties across Utah. We must adopt a humane approach to this real­ity, reflect­ing our unique cul­ture, his­tory and spirit of inclu­sion. The way we treat immi­grants will say more about us as a free soci­ety and less about our immi­grant neigh­bors. Utah should always be a place that wel­comes peo­ple of goodwill.

Since the name of this shares a word with my home address (I live on “Com­pact Street”), I thought it would be inter­est­ing for non-​​Utahns to have more con­text, some local color as it were.

Many non-​​LDS, non-​​Utahns know that the Mor­mon Church (offi­cially, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-​​Day Saints, or LDS; in some con­texts, the term “Mor­mon” is con­sid­ered offen­sive) is a dom­i­nant polit­i­cal and social force in Utah. One might think that the force of the church would be in inverse pro­por­tion to the dis­tance from the LDS Tem­ple and Church Office Build­ing in Tem­ple Square, cen­trally located in Salt Lake City. In real­ity, when non-​​LDS Utahns deri­sively refer to the “mother ship”, they gen­er­ally mean the Brigham Young Uni­ver­sity (BYU) cam­pus in Provo, about 30 miles south of cen­tral Salt Lake City.

I’ve always had a warm spot in my heart for BYU. It’s where I received my first kiss, where I saw my first micro­proces­sor chip (1973), and where I learned For­tran, key­punch­ing batch jobs for main­frames, and how to pick up girls using a pre­cur­sor to IRC Chat. At 15, I found my bur­geon­ing skill in plead­ing for the hearts and minds of young Catholic girls trans­ferred neatly and with only minor mod­i­fi­ca­tions to plead­ing for the hearts and minds of young LDS girls — and BYU coeds sev­eral years older.

Orem, where Rep. Sand­strom is from, has a rep­u­ta­tion as being the city that always tries to outdo their next-​​door-​​neighbor city Provo. Orem and Provo, the major part of Utah County, tend to vie for who can be the most faith­fully LDS, sort of a “¿Quién es más macho?” contest.

So it is quite sig­nif­i­cant that the text of the Utah Com­pact is printed in the Deseret News, a church-​​owned news­pa­per that once oper­ated more-​​or-​​less inde­pen­dently but now is widely regarded as a fancy church newslet­ter, and that the LDS Church came out not in sup­port of the Utah Com­pact itself, but rather of its gen­eral prin­ci­ples. This is exactly how the church lead­er­ship behaves when it wants to sup­port some­thing with­out caus­ing offense or cre­at­ing the appear­ance of engag­ing in polit­i­cal action.

I would pre­dict that Sandstrom’s bill is dead on arrival. I’d also sug­gest that if the Obama Admin­is­tra­tion really wants to paint Sens. Lee and Hatch into a cor­ner on immi­gra­tion reform, that they adopt this lan­guage in enabling legislation.

Related Arti­cles

• Utah pro­posal would allow ille­gal immi­grants to work (ksl​.com)
• Edi­to­r­ial: The Utah Com­pact (nytimes​.com)
• What do Utahns think about Utah Immi­gra­tion Com­pact? (ksl​.com)
• Utah Con­ser­v­a­tives Make Com­pact Against Arizona-​​Style Law (immi​gra​tion​.change​.org)
• Mor­mon Church Joins Sup­port­ers for Pro­gres­sive Immi­gra­tion Reform, Help­ing Sink Arizona-​​Like Bill (alter​net​.org)
• Immi­gra­tion ‘com­pact’ offered in Utah (politico​.com)