Responsible citizens are rightly concerned about the effect that the state's new anti-immigration law, SB81, will have on Utah communities and businesses. The law imprudently increases government influence in citizens' lives and such imprudence will have negative consequences.

Some argue that SB81 will re-enthrone the rule of law and drive criminals from our state as local police enforce federal immigration law. The reality, however, is that such enforcement is just as likely to weaken public safety as strengthen it.

Consider the case of Richard Lemos and his wife, undocumented immigrants, who turned in a known felon for selling fraudulent documents within this vulnerable community. They not only tipped off authorities but also agreed to call the perpetrator while federal agents recorded their phone conversation to strengthen the case against her. For such admirable acts, Lemos and his wife are being deported along with 26 other undocumented Utahns who cooperated with federal law enforcement in the case.

Such actions sow distrust for law enforcement that spreads like wildfire within the undocumented community. Utah's new anti-immigration law exacerbates this growing distrust by permitting local law enforcement to act as federal immigration agents, even if few actually do. As a result, real criminals — the gang members, drug dealers and other predators that terrorize Utah communities — will stay on the streets because otherwise law-abiding undocumented Utahns will not turn them in for fear of being deported.

Available data indicate that most undocumented immigrants in Utah are otherwise law-abiding individuals, just like the rest of us. Identified undocumented immigrants are less than 5 percent of the state-inmate population and less than four percent of the county-jail population, according to the Utah Department of Corrections and a Sutherland Institute survey of county jails, respectively.

Between 2004 and 2008, the undocumented population in Utah grew by 57 percent (from 70,000 to 100,000 according to the Pew Hispanic Center) while the number of undocumented state prisoners grew only 10 percent (from 280 to 308). Even if most undocumented criminals were not being counted, the sheer size of the wave of new undocumented immigrants should have created a larger bump in the undocumented-prison population — unless, of course, the newly arriving undocumented immigrants are otherwise obeying the law.