Illegals are hot issue for Utahns

Andrew Parker sighed when he heard he would be running against a strident anti-illegal immigration candidate.

Parker, seeking the Republican nomination for state House District 33 in West Valley City, knows illegal immigration is a "hot-button" issue with delegates, but he'd rather focus on what he sees as more important issues, such as education and economic development.

Parker said he disagrees with anti-illegal immigration activist Alex Segura.

However, a new public opinion poll suggests that most Utahns would support a candidate who wants to get tough on immigration.

Some 68 percent of Utahns said they would vote for a candidate whose platform includes immigration measures such as repealing a law allowing some undocumented students to pay in-state tuition, according to a Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV statewide poll of 627 adults.

The survey was conducted March 27-30 by Dan Jones & Associates as the U.S. Senate debated several immigration reform proposals — and as hundreds of students in Utah and thousands across the country walked out of class in protest. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percent.

Archie Archuleta, chairman of the Utah Coalition of La Raza, said this election season has the potential to be disastrous for immigrant rights. Archuleta said he hopes that sensible im- migration reform by Congress can curb what he sees as growing anti-immigrant sentiment.

"This election year is going to be a real test of where we're headed as this anti-immigration wave is getting stronger," Archuleta said. "The trend of the nation has been to the right on immigration issues."

While the issue has nationally been a divisive one for Republicans, the poll suggested that in Utah Democrats are more divided on the issue than Republicans.

Among those who said they were Democrats, 26 percent said they would definitely vote for get-tough candidates compared to 16 percent who said they would definitely vote against such candidates. The split among Republicans was 44 percent to 5 percent. Those who said they are very conservative were the most likely to say they'd definitely vote for a get-tough immigration candidate.

The results aren't that surprising, since they illustrate the nature of Utah's Republican party, which tends to reflect the party's conservative branch nationally, said Kelly Patterson, director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University.