Gov. Spencer Cox still believes President Donald Trump is the only person capable of fixing what he called America’s broken immigration policy. In fact, he called it a “very, very broken system.”
Cox said that now that the border is considered secure under Trump, it’s time to work toward bipartisan solutions to the nation’s immigration system.
“If not for the terrible mishandling of immigration policy by the previous administration, we would not be having to deal with this,” he told reporters during his monthly press conference.
“I just can’t underscore enough how awful it was, the Biden administration allowing millions of undocumented immigrants, some of them with very nefarious purposes ... pouring across the southern border with no friction whatsoever,” he said.
On allegations of racial profiling, Cox said the practice is “not acceptable in our state,” adding that he thinks there is a lot of fear and misinformation associated with immigration enforcement actions.
Under the Trump administration, the monthly arrests of unauthorized immigrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in western states, including Utah, have nearly tripled, targeting mostly migrants without criminal records.
Cox addressed the ways law enforcement in the state is working with ICE.
Utah county signs agreement with ICE
When asked about Utah’s connection with ICE under 287(g), which permits local law enforcement to aid ICE in processing undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, Cox clarified that the state has no authority over federal agents’ actions in Utah but said the state’s relationship with the agency is positive.
“We’ve always made it clear that we have to follow the law and the Constitution,” Cox said. “This really is about, again, enforcing the law and doing it in a way that protects citizens here in the state, trying to get the worst offenders off the streets. ... I know there’s a lot of fear out there, a lot of misinformation, and we want to do everything we can to help people understand that we will do this the right way.”
His remarks come just a day after over a hundred people attended a public hearing in Utah County to oppose the county’s decision to work with ICE under the 287(g) provision. The Utah County commissioners ultimately approved the collaborative efforts.
Despite the public’s concerns, Cox said that in Utah, ICE’s efforts have been handled “very well,” although he didn’t comment directly on the circumstances in other states.
He emphasized the unprecedented circumstances the country is facing due to the historical number of illegal immigrants who entered the country during the Biden administration.
“We have to be able to set limitations,” Cox said. “People don’t hate immigration, and they don’t hate immigrants, but they want it to be orderly and thoughtful, and it just has not been. They certainly don’t want criminals coming in here. And we’ve seen too much of that.”
What Americans want, he said, is an Ellis Island.
“Where it’s orderly, where we set limits, where we decide, as a country, Congress decides, or the states decide how many people we’re going to let in and for what purposes, and then we follow through with it,” he added. “If we had a system like that, immigration would be a non-issue today.”