SALT LAKE CITY — Seeking an outlet to air their concerns amid the ongoing crackdown on illegal immigration, representatives from several Latin American organizations in Utah turned last week to Utah Sen. Luz Escamilla.
“We just wanted to create a channel with the authorities and our leadership,” said Mayra Molina head of the Venezuelan Alliance of Utah and one of the participants in the gathering.
No formal actions are necessarily coming out of the gathering, nor legislation. But the meeting highlights the jitters caused by the push under President Donald Trump to detain and deport immigrants in the country illegally and the efforts of Utah’s immigrant community to be heard and understand what’s happening in the corridors of power.
Escamilla “has more time in the Senate, experience, that’s why we wanted to talk to her,” said Gladis Rodriguez of the Salvadoran and Latino Community in Utah, a Salvadoran cultural and advocacy group.
“The Latino community is very uninformed. That’s another topic we covered — how can we inform the Latino community in our language about the laws, what’s happening, why they can deport you?” she said.
Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City and herself a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Mexico, said she regularly meets with varied representatives from the Latino community. But Rodriguez said the 2.5-hour gathering at the state Capitol was the first that she knows of focused on immigration that included such a broad cross-section. On hand were representatives from Utah’s Venezuelan, Salvadoran, Bolivian, Colombian, Mexican, Peruvian, Ecuadorian and Honduran communities.
“They’ve been very proactive these last six months, since this new administration came in,” Escamilla said.
Representatives from Utah’s Venezuelan, Peruvian, Bolivian, Mexican, Salvadoran, Honduran, Ecuadorian and Colombian communities met July 29 at the state Capitol in Salt Lake City with Sen. Luz Escamilla, at the far end of the table on the left. | Salvadoran and Latino Community in Utah
Molina said meeting participants agree on the need to pursue immigrants who commit crimes. But there are many issues of import to the immigrant community, including access to driver’s licenses and driving-privilege cards. “We just want to make sure that our community is going to have access to driver’s licenses or driving privileges,” Molina said.
While driving-privilege cards in Utah are meant in part for people “who are unable to establish lawful presence,” reads the Utah Driver License Division website, Molina stressed that they also serve certain classes of immigrants in the country legally.
“We want to ensure that communities understand who qualifies for a driver’s license, who qualifies for a driving privilege card, how to get there because we want everyone to be legally tested, trained and insured on the roads,” Escamilla said.
Also of concern, Molina said, are the difficulties some Venezuelan immigrants in Utah face in securing birth certificates for their U.S.-born children since they are unable to update or renew their Venezuelan passports given fractured U.S.-Venezuelan diplomatic relations. Assuring the constitutional rights of due process of immigrants and the privacy of immigrants’ personal information in the hands of schools and other public entities are also big issues, she said.
Housing is another issue that came up, Escamilla said, more specifically, predatory practices immigrants are facing from some landlords. Some also worry members of the immigrant community who face domestic violence or sexual assault are increasingly leery of seeking help from police given their migratory status and worries that asking for help could put them on the radar of federal immigration authorities.
A priority for her is educating the immigrant community “so they know that they can access public safety and law enforcement without being fearful,” Escamilla said.
