A dozen "ordinary citizens" got together to talk about — but not debate — illegal immigration Saturday in the second meeting of an experiment called the Citizens Council on Immigration.

The council is the brainchild of Westminster College philosophy professor Jeffrey Nielsen, who believes that in a democracy ordinary citizens have the right and duty to be consulted before policy and laws are enacted.

Saturday's event followed a Citizens Council meeting last week attended by immigrants and refugees. Next week, both groups will meet together to try to reach some consensus on specific questions. That meeting, which will include both members of the anti-illegal immigration Utah Minuteman Project and undocumented workers, may prove more explosive than the past two — although Nielsen has spent nine hours now teaching the groups about the process of dialogue and deliberation.

Saturday's session left Minuteman member Phil Morgan feeling unsatisfied.

"I feel like I've been conditioned," the 84-year-old Morgan complained after the meeting, which he characterized as trying to prepare him to change his mind about illegal immigration. "I'm too old for that."

Wally McCormick of the Constitution Coalition, which is made up of Minuteman members and others, was more sanguine.

"I came in very negative about (the meeting), but there are a lot of concerned people here," he said. "There's never been anything like this, where citizens are given a chance to say how we feel in an unviolent atmosphere."

Nielsen hopes one day all kinds of policy issues will have citizens councils, and each council will be made up of people chosen completely at random. For this first experiment, though, members were chosen by Nielsen and Salt Lake City Office of Diversity administrator Josie Valdez. Saturday's meeting included people with opposing views.

To deliberate and to advocate are two different things, Nielsen told the group. To advocate a position means that you "already think you have all the facts and the truth, and there's nothing you can learn from the other side." To deliberate requires the recognition that the other side may have valid points "and you can get to a better solution together" by looking for shared values.

Most of the four-hour meeting focused on abstract concepts such as "four attitudes of citizenship in a democracy," on techniques such as "sincere listening" and on stumbling blocks such as "cognitive biases." In an effort to help them expand their views, Nielsen had council members come up with a question they would like to ask people who hold an opposing view on immigration, and a question the other person might ask in return.

"Do you consider illegal aliens victims?" was Utah Minuteman Project director Eli Cawley's question for people who support approaches such as amnesty. "Why are you racist?" he thought those people might ask him.

"What would you do if your children were starving?" Rebecca Chavez-Houck would like to ask those who choose to deport undocumented workers. She knows those people would ask her, "What don't you understand about 'illegal?"'

Obviously, Nielsen acknowledged, "immigration is an overwhelming issue, and we'd have to be naive to think we can solve it." But his goal, he said, "is to create a different model for citizens to come together to practice democracy."

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com