Instead of having an immigration debate, what if ordinary citizens sat down together and had a dialogue? What if they didn't think of themselves as advocates of a fixed position but instead agreed to listen as much as talk?

That's professor Jeffrey Nielsen's vision as he and Salt Lake City's Office of Diversity embark today on what they're calling the Citizens Council on Immigration. "It's an experiment," said Nielsen, who teaches philosophy at both Westminster College and Utah Valley State College. "We're not going to solve immigration, but we can show a different model to approach these issues."

It's a model that's a little baffling to advocates on both sides of the immigration issue. Earlier this week, Frank Cordova, director of the Utah Coalition of La Raza, wondered why his grass roots advocacy group wasn't invited to today's Citizens Council gathering. And Eli Cowley, who heads the Utah Minuteman Project, questioned the motives of the meeting, given Mayor Rocky Anderson's expressed support for undocumented immigrants.

But the expressed goal of the Citizens Council is to give a voice to people who don't usually have a chance to participate, said Nielsen. Typically it is advocates who get quoted and blue-ribbon panels that are asked to consult on policy.

"What I hope is that we will be able to validate my belief that democracy basically means that ordinary people are smart enough and morally decent enough for self-government," said Nielsen, who last year launched the Democracy House Project to encourage civic literacy.

He hopes that the Citizens Council on Immigration will be the first of many such councils in various Utah communities, addressing topics such as health-care reform and education.

"Too often we just speak from our emotions," he said. "We all have good intentions, but there are all these unquestioned myths and assumptions, and we need a safe place to bring them out and examine them."

Today's meeting, the first of four, will gather about 15 immigrants and refugees. An Aug. 11 meeting will be composed of what Nielsen calls "longer-term residents," and on Aug. 18 both groups will gather to deliberate together. Both groups will then present their conclusions at a 3 p.m. Sept. 2 public forum in the Salt Lake City downtown library. That forum will kick off the "Mayor's First Annual Democracy Week."

In a perfect world, Nielsen said, the people invited to Citizens Councils would be chosen randomly and would receive a stipend. But that requires more resources than he or the city have, he said. Instead, for this first council, participants were invited from people that Nielsen knew from lectures he has delivered for the Utah Humanities Council, and immigrants and refugees known to the Office of Diversity.