Reader comments
Immigration law snubbed by S.L. police

I can't believe our lawmakers are wasting their time, and our money, passing bonehead laws like this. Wait a minute! Yes I can . . .

If the illegals are in basic areas, can we afford to just ignore? Seems like this is how we got into this mess....selective obiedience to the laws???

If Salt Lake City remains a sanctuary city then it will turn into a Los Angeles. What Salt Lake City needs is a police chief in the model of Joe Arpaio, the Sheriff of Maricopa County in AZ. How can a law enforcement officer be taken seriously when he turns a blind eye to lawbreakers? How disgusting that a great city such as Salt Lake has a police chief who won't enforce law. We need a new police chief NOW!

I sure don't see how enforcing our immigration laws violate human rights. That weak argument could be argued against almost ANY law. Further, a person is either law abiding or not. If someone is will to justify breaking one law, they can just as easily justify breaking others. We might as well make SLC a sanctuary city just like San Francisco. Or even better, lets eliminate ALL laws and try anarchy for a while

its a shame that a police dept, who's job it is to enforce ALL LAWS is not deciding what laws to chose to enforce and which ones to look the other way.
So much for safety in SLC. we already know there are gang members in almost every major US City and we also know the Mexican drug cartel has operations in 230 American cities, and I'm just guessing that those associated with both groups have a good chance of being illegally in the US.
ILLEGAL IS ILLEGAL, Enforce the law or resign and let someone in office who will enforce ALL the laws

People on both sides of this issue need to understand that catching illegal aliens is the easy part of this equation. What do you do with the detained illegal aliens? You wait for an understaffed, and underfunded Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to send sufficent manpower and buses to transport the detainees back to where ever they came from. Many of you are assuming that nearly all of the undocumented aliens are from Mexico where it is easy for us to push them back through the fence. What do you expect an underfunded agency to do with detainees from other countries> Those aliens detainees have to by flown at taxpayer expense back to where ever they come from assuming that country will accept the.

I can't blame state and local law enforcement for not wanting to be bogged down detaining more aliens that ICE can possibly remove from their custody due to lack of manpower and detention and removal funding.

By not providing the funding to remove aliens from state and local custody in a timely manner the US Congress has hamstrung this "cooperation" that they brag about. That is not new either.

Salt Lake City needs a recall referendum. This Police Chief needs to be booted out. What a weak disgrace.

Not long ago I had to go to traffic court because I was picked up for speeding. (My bad.) During the course of the session and dealing with the individuals there, the Judge discoved two illegal aliens. He asked them to pay their fines. When they admitted that they were illegals, all he said was, "Go take care of it." Needless to say, my faith is really challenged in our government. I think some law enforcement officers and judges have forgotten why they are there. They seem to have their own agendas at the tax payers expense. I feel a backlash a comin.

1) Illegals would not come to Utah if employers didn't hire them. Where is the discussion about dealing with employers?
2) Often employers prefer them over citizen residents because most undocumented immigrants understand how to work;
3) Not all individuals who are brown and speak spanish are non-citizens.

Local law enforcement is correct in that singling out a certain portion of the population is neither fair, nor will it prevent a number of unintended consequences.

Let immigration handle immigration issues. It makes a lot more sense. Knee-jerk responses designed to solve the problem in one fell swoop seem to me to have been ill considered.

We didn't fight two world wars to defend our constitution to allow illegals to thumb their noses at our laws. The solutions to the transportation is our railroads. We have plenty of freight cars standing idly by. And we can charge each county for each illegal that we have to ship back to their country. What a way to get out of debt! OBAMA SHOULD JUMP ON THIS ONE! Just think they wouldn't have to walk back across the boarder.

Its good to see there is some justice in the Law Enforcement arena.
Good to see they can justify this law as "Biased" and "racial".
We need to take a stand against unjustly laws and those who promote them!

Shurtleff is the biggest coward in the world. He has been an awful attorney general. All he has done is stoke his own ego the entire time he has been in office and has never taken on the tough cases and actually prosecute illegal immigrants. If he decides to run for Senator, heaven forbid, I cannot vote for him.

So let's see if I understand Mr. Burbank's logic.

Let's say I make a living burglarizing construction sites. By Salt Lake City standards, they will refuse to investigate if they catch me sneaking around a construction site at night with a truckload of stolen appliances because they are afraid it will "have a chilling effect" and I won't report my drug dealer for taking my money and not delivering the meth I ordered from him.

No, the real "wedge" he is afraid of is that by enforcing the law, he is going to alienate the aliens and might lose the next election. He seems to have confused his job description of "safety under the law" with "comfy in spite of the law".

What we need is a Police Chief that is a law man instead of a politician.

mention this but the law allows law enforcement to opt out. So they really are following the law.

Salt Lake City made the right decision and here is why.

Anyone tasked with enforcing immigration law has temptation to racially profile. State law enforcement officers, who are always around everywhere enforcing every law on the books almost, if they were to racially profile would make live quite untolerable for the minorities in our community.

The founders got it right when they tasked the federal government, not the states to handle immigration.

We try to get around this by having state police become federal police also, but this is not in keeping with the spirit of the constitution.

Salt Lake City made a good call.

motivated. But are Mexicans, Salvadorans, et all a separate race from me, a honky?

I guess the natives would be. But your average Mexican is either Spanish or a mix of Spanish and native. Does that constitute a separate race?

If Chief Burbank would have said that the law was bigoted, than that would have been right. But racial motivated? I'm not so sure.

It seems to me that the law basically allows officers to investigate immigration status of people that are picked up. I don't think anyone expects that SLCPD would be doing factory raids or anything like that. It seems like a simple, common-sense thing to have the police officers with all possible legal tools at their disposal. Right now, as I understand it, SLCPD has no obligation or authority to check immigration status and act on that status. If they find out the person they just got was illegal, they then call ICE, which may or may not come and get the guy. So, it is just easier to let them go. SLCPD with ICE authority would simplify the situation and allow enforcement. This seems to be a great tool to get some gangs off the street by deporting when other charges may not appropriate. Simply having a gang tattoo is not a crime. If officers can deport a current gang member that is only charged with a simple crime or is suspected only of other crimes, that is a win in my book.

. . . of the problem our Nation faces -- SLC's police hierarchy considers enforcing the law to be violating criminals' human rights!

How did we get into this mess?

Oh yeah, now I remember. Democrats are going after the illegal alien vote.

SB 81 is NOT racially motivated. Nowhere in the bill is a specific race mentioned. The fact that the huge illegal Latino population will be most affected by this law has nothing to do with the law itself and everything to do with personal decisions made by individuals (most of whom happen to be Latino and most of those from Mexico) to enter this country illegally or overstay a visa. How do the illegal choices of foreign nationals make this bill racist?

What about the fraudulent documents they purchase? What about the smugglers they pay to bring them here? What about the drugs they carried on their way into our country? These people are not innocent victims - they are complicit in all this crime! It is the people of Utah who are the victims of these aliens and the greedy, dishonest employers who hire them.

I have always trusted law enforcement but sadly that has changed. If illegal aliens and their despicable employers are above the law, then we all should be above the law. I am an honest, law-abiding citizen and I deserve to feel that law enforcement will protect me. Shame on Shurtleff, Becker and Burbank!

What part of ILLEGAL is not understood here? Apparently if one chooses to add race to the issue then illegal ceases to be "illegal".

Maybe that is the solution to avoiding enforcement a lot of other laws. Let's just say that the problem is racial, then the matter doesnt have to be enforced.

Our "law enforcement officials" send a dangerous signal when they selectively enforce any law.

The word here is ILLEGAL. How about the victims of identity theft, driving without insurance, hit and run victims, emergency room overload. The word is "ILLEGAL" no matter what race is involved. If Polygamists were labels Caucasians would the Attorney General stop prosecuting because it was racist?

Apparently our Leaders feel that the answer is to call the matter racial profiling and they are relieved of any enforcement duty. Will they do that with all races including Caucasian?