- Gov. Cox said President-elect Trump's mass deportation agenda is about "law and order."
- Cox said the focus should be on deporting violent criminals but said it should extend to all those living in the country illegally.
- Cox blamed President Biden for a historic surge in immigration that he said has led to increased crime.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox clarified that his support for President-elect Donald Trump’s deportation agenda extends beyond removing immigrants who have committed violent crimes after entering the country illegally to also include those who are in the country without proper documentation or residency status.
Last month, Cox released a statement outlining five policy initiatives to increase coordination between federal and local partners to identify and deport “more illegal immigrants who have committed crimes and pose a threat to public safety.”
During his monthly press conference on Thursday, Cox said the state’s approach will make Utah safer and will actually benefit the Latino community.
While he reiterated his belief that the country must fix its legal immigration process, the governor also said he supports the deportation of those committing a crime by living in the country illegally without proper documentation.
“If you commit crimes, I don’t care if they’re violent or non-violent, yes, you should not be here,” Cox said. “You shouldn’t have been here in the first place, but you definitely should not be here.”
Who will be deported under Trump?
Cox echoed Trump, and his incoming border czar Tom Homan, saying that a program of “mass deportations” will initially focus on those who have committed violent crimes and who are already on lists kept by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation proceedings.
There are 662,566 “noncitizens with criminal histories” known to ICE in the United States, according to a document sent by ICE to Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, in September. Nearly 436,000 are previously convicted criminals and more than 425,000 of these are not being held in detention by ICE. Homan has said that these “700,000″ will be the first to be rounded up by ICE for deportation under a second Trump term.
“We’re going to start with criminals, people who are breaking the law and and causing harm to to Utahns and to Americans,” Cox said. “That’s where we have to start. Let’s get the worst element out of here.”
Deporting immigrants who break the law is not a controversial or new idea, according to Cox. It’s something he’s been saying “for 15 years,” and it’s something that former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush understood well, Cox said. At least 5 million immigrants were removed from the country under Obama and Bush, according to Department of Homeland Security data.
The controversy surrounding deportations has emerged as a result of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, Cox said, which reversed many of Trump’s border security measures, relaxed asylum laws and created a “catch and release” system where immigrants could await their asylum claim court hearing indefinitely inside the United States.
Cox said “porous borders and an administration that didn’t take this stuff seriously” contributed to the largest surge in immigration in U.S. history, which, according to a New York Times analysis, led to the share of foreign-born individuals living in the U.S. reaching a record high of 15.2% in 2023.
Around 11 million immigrants were encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection during the Biden administration, in addition to the 11 million unauthorized immigrants already estimated to be living inside the United States.
The surge in immigration included an influx of more than 50,000 immigrants from China, and thousands more from Russia and the Middle East, during Biden’s tenure.
Biden’s policies “allowed an historic — by every number — number of people to come across undocumented and a number of criminals to come across undocumented,” Cox said. “And we are all paying the price for that as we’re trying to root out that crime now and get those people out of our country.”
Cox also addressed the presence of violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which has spread to roughly 20 states across the country and was identified in Utah earlier this year.
Group members have been charged with burglary and assault in connection with an alleged prostitution operation in Millcreek and a gang-related shooting and car crash in Herriman.
Cox said state and local law enforcement are working closely together to arrest gang members.
How will Utah law enforcement work with ICE under Trump?
Cox is looking forward to improved interactions with ICE once Trump enters office, he said. The last four years have seen frustration grow among Utah sheriffs toward ICE.
The ICE Salt Lake Field Office incorrectly labeled Utah a sanctuary state in 2023 after it began releasing previously convicted immigrants who entered the country illegally back into Utah communities because it could not find detention space in the state.
Utah Sheriff’s have said they have been repeatedly stonewalled by national ICE officials when they have made efforts to find detention space for ICE detainees.
In addition to releasing criminally convicted immigrants, ICE has also transported immigrants to Utah without the immigrants knowing why they were brought here and against the state’s wishes, said Cox, who did not have a number for how many individuals were brought into the state this way.
Cox said this lack of participation from federal partners has hurt Utah’s efforts to remove criminal immigrants.
“This is something we’ve been wanting to do for years,” Cox said. “We just haven’t had an administration or an ICE leadership that has been willing to do the hard work that needs to be done.”
During the run up to his second term in office, Trump has committed to use every tool at his disposal to implement large scale deportations of immigrants who entered the country illegally. By designating the recent surge in immigrant border crossings as an “invasion,” Trump has promised to activate the military, including the National Guard, to deport immigrants.
Cox said Utah’s deportation efforts will be managed by the Department of Public Safety, not the National Guard. But he did not rule out potentially deploying National Guardsmen to help with immigration law enforcement, as Cox has done in the past when he sent a handful of service members to help secure the southern border in Texas.
Cox said he did not know how many immigrants are in Utah illegally and is unsure of how many could potentially be deported. He also expressed skepticism that ICE, as a “broken” government agency, would be up to the task of deporting what Trump has claimed are tens of millions of immigrants who are in the country illegally.
“I have not seen a plan. I don’t see any scenario under which 20 million people can be deported,” Cox said. “That’s just not logistically possible right now when we can’t even deport somebody breaking the law down the street. So that’s where our focus will be.”