Comments about ‘Utah immigration bill coming next week, despite call for moratorium, Sandstrom says’

There is no middle ground. A person comes here illegally and works, they commit multiple felonies. It's against the law.

Neither side is willing to budge. The Hispanic groups demanded and received amnesty once before, they want it again.

SLars: you're incorrect. If a person enters illegally, it's a misdemeanor. If a person is deported and re-enters, it's a felony. If a person enters legally but overstays a visa, it's not a criminal offense at all, but rather a civil infraction.

Our economy needs immigrant workers, it's as simple as that. We've invited them here out of one side of our mouths with economic demands, and told them to get out with the other side of our mouth--we've let the laws get out of sync with reality. No fence, no amount of border soldiers, no laws will prevent them from coming if the market beckons them. And our laws are so outdated it's ridiculously difficult for immigrant workers to come here legally.

You can make all the hardliner, Arizona-style laws you want, but until we make the legal path easier (or decide we're willing to pay 10 times as much as we do now for tomatoes and citrus fruit), no get-tough law will solve the problem. It will just make us feel like we did something, however ineffectual.

GO Sandstrom GO !

How well do you think the people in another country would react if I illegally entered their country, used their governments to get food, health care and other stuff, then protested down their streets carrying an American Flag demanding that they give me citizen rights and make a path for me to become a citizen?

What I don't understand is why the legal US citizen Hispanics aren't upset that the illegal Hispanics are causing all these problems and making all Hispanics look bad?
Instead many of them are out there demonstrating and marching with them in protest.
If you don't like the law work to get it changed. but don't support illegals in their quest for amnesty.
Follow the law and come in legally.

Our economy does not need illegal immigrants. We have 10% unemployment - if we sent home all the illegals - then we could employ most of the unemployed. And YES most of them would do the work.

@MormonDem - the argument of increased prices for tomatoes and produce has been shown to be false, many times.

A recent article in the New York and LA Times reported on what is being called "silent raids," where a gov't auditor reviews a company's employees work status and notifies the employer of those in the country illegally, so they can be fired.

After Gebbers Farms in Washington state fired all of their illegal immigrant workers, they applied to the federal guest worker program and have replaced all of the workers with 1,200 LEGAL temporary workers, most from Mexico. The guest workers, who can stay for up to six months, also included about 300 from Jamaica.

I haven't seen an increase in the price of apples.

So, if someone really wants to come to the U.S. "just to work," the mantra repeated continuously by Tony Yapias and other illegal immigrant apologists, there is already a guest worker program in place.

Contrary to your assertion, our laws are not outdated and it is NOT difficult for someone to come to the U.S. to work - the experience at Gebbers Farms illustrates that the existing program WORKS!

Bravo Rep. Sandstrom.

Keep on fighting to enforce our border laws, since the feds will not do the job.

Keep on fighting to protect legal immigrants who obey our laws.

Keep on fighting to distinguish between illegal immigration (bad!) and legal immigration (good)!

MormonDem, what I said is correct. Coming here illegally may be a misdemeanor, but once a person works they commit multiple felonies.

With 10% unemployment we don't need workers. It's the responsibility of every government to protect it's people from flooding the labor force. That's why all countries have immigration quotas. The citizens of the US only want what people in other countries have, responsibly enforced immigration.

There is nothing mean spirited or racist about it. Those are ploys to defend the indefensible.

Go Rep Sandstrom and don't compromise or make deals with any of these lawbreaking criminals. Here is the deal,,, go home and come back the right way, end of discussion,we are all tired of you and your whining and complaining, you have no right to even be here. The polls show overwhelming support for no amnesty and strong enforcement, no more talk of deals. GO home!

whatever the question, "more mexicans" is NOT the answer.

LOL at the people who think we'd solve unemployment by putting unemployed professionals to work changing hotel linens and picking lettuce.
Not going to happen.

12 million people going away?
Not going to happen.

Seal the border?
Not going to happen.

Its nice to have dreams, but at some point you have to grow up and think of a realistic solution.

If the Utah bill, like the Arizona bill, allows for arresting undocumented workers, I hope Mr Sandstrom has been honest and complete by adding a provision to allocate money to expand jail space.

Just last May, the state corrections chief noted that they were nearing capacity and inmates could be released early. Imagine flooding the jails with hundreds of undocumented workers.

Dreamers think that you'll hand the undocumented over to ICE and they'll be deported. Wrong. ICE will take the "real" criminals and tell Utah to release the others. If Utah chooses to keep them in jail, where will the money for that come from?

The State of Utah is already borrowing money from Salt Lake County for road projects. Utah doesn't have the money to build more jails.

The feds have failed? That seems to be the easy answer everyone local latches on to. I might ask why state prisons and jails are filled to the brim, and yet still we have violent crime and theft, why is that? Has the state of Utah failed? Could we do better? Sure. And more and more federal resources have been added in recent years.

Utah has an immigration court with two judges now. Five years ago all Utah deportation cases had to wait in line in San Francisco or Denver. Deportations are up significantly nationally to more than 300,000 last year. The number of undocumented workers/residents is down by about 2 million, border patrol is increased.

But there is an even more important point to be made here. Will Representative Sandstrom's bill, if it becomes law, help address the illegal immigration problem? Probably not. Why not? At least two reasons I'll expand upon in my next post.

First, the resources and training required to enforce it.

Second, the fact that better laws already exist that are not being enforced, not by the feds, but by state and local policies. Namely, "secure communities" or 287-G

Amnesty would put most of those 12 million out of work, if their employer suddenly had to pay a fair wage.

The article doesn't address how it would be implemented and how much it would cost to enforce.

A better federal law already exists, 287-G that allows local law enforcement to share biometric information with ICE. Training an resources are required. Only Washington and Weber counties in Utah have implemented 287-G. No counties in AZ have done so. Why is that? Could it partially be that state and local budgets are significantly down because of lost tax receipts stemming from the economic crisis? Representative Sandtrom's district in Utah county has not implemented 287-G. Shouldn't he be working to see existing laws are enforced, and programs full utilized before passing new laws? Is this new law an unfunded mandate to strapped local agencies?

I don't need to read the text of the as yet unreleased bill to know that it will take additional resources and training to enforce. Not only that, but what will local law enforcement do with illegal aliens once they have apprehended them? Who will hold them? Where will they be held? Already our prisons and jails are overflowing and non-violent criminals are released because of space limitations.

Sandstrom for president!

WONDERFUL. Let's get to work.

@MormonDem. SLARS is correct when he says that the vast majority of illegal aliens commit felonies.

Immediately upon illegally crossing the border or overstaying their visas, illegal aliens obtain the fraudulent documents required to get jobs with reputable employers who have them complete I-9 forms.

According to the Social Security Administration 75% of illegal aliens have a fraudulently obtained Social Security number (felony). When the illegal aliens use their phony SSNs on an I-9 form that is perjury and another felony. Finally, in Utah, if the SSN being used belongs to another person, either knowingly or unknowingly, that is identity fraud, another felony.

According to information provided by Workforce Services and the Utah Attorney General’s office, an estimated 50,000 Utah kids have their identities being used by illegal aliens. They have their good names ruined, credit destroyed, are denied college loans and financial aid and may even have their medical records corrupted by illegal aliens using their SSNs.

So the bottom line is that a minimum of 75% of illegal aliens are committing serious felonies with real victims. These are not good, honest law abiding people.

I would like to see teeth put into E-Verify compliance. We have businessmen who talk a mean game of morals, and claim to be our moral authority. But without penalties they can't be trusted to do what is right.

Mr. Gutierrez, until the Latino community steps up and encourages people to come here legally, I don't see common ground.

The Latino organizations and immigration lawyers, need to warn people that living here illegally for one year, will block citizenship for 10 years. Families are split up, not because of our laws, but failure on the part of those who should be warning them.

People that encourage illegal immigration are responsible for the families getting split up.

First of all, how does an illegal alien get any immigration status? I wish everyone would stop calling them immigrants, they are an invasion and occupation force 21 million strong.

What would really get some attention is to sue the federal government and Obama for failure to respond to national security and protecting our borders and states from invasion. Teddy would roll over in his grave to see what our government has allowed as he led so many americans in battle to prevent.

Mexico has always been about invasions and occupational forces, not immigration. Calderon himself leads the invasion forces to destroy this country and take it over. These illegal aliens are not loyal america but they are loyal to Calderon and Mexico's government.

We must have and enforce border and invasion controls if we wish to remain a free country. Our laws that have worked for hundreds of years are being threatened if we don't back up our laws and the constitution with extreme prejudice. It doesn't matter if its an imaginary but established border line or 10,000 miles away, we still have to protect our rights and laws and borders.

Sandstrom is another of the "Copy cat" Lawmakers who is unable to legislate or use his own intelligence to enact laws for the good of the people. Mr Sandstrom seeks gratification from an abrided law that targets and profiles people on ethnic origin.

Why don't we:
- Stop giving driving privileges to illegals
- Stop providing social services to illegals
- Stop educating illegals - prohibit illegal childre in the school systems
- Start fining any company that hires illegals $100,000 per illegal employee
- Start deporting back to Mexico any illegal identified
- Start requiring police officers to ask EVERYONE on a routine traffic stop "What is your citizenship?" - that way, we're not discriminating against anyone!

If people are not in the USA legally, they need to get the message - "Go home, and come back when you've followed the legal process to get here!" - this is true of people from any other country, period.