OGDEN — U.S. Senate candidate Brad Wilson on Friday called for national legislation requiring people to show identification to vote, saying he believes illegal immigrants are being allowed into the country for “political purposes” to influence future census results.
Wilson, a former Republican speaker of the Utah House of Representatives, joined two state legislators and several sheriffs at the Weber County Sheriff’s Office in Ogden to discuss immigration issues and their impact on Utah law enforcement.
Weber County Sheriff Ryan Arbon, one of three Utah sheriffs who toured the U.S.-Mexico border earlier this month, said his county has seen an increase in traffic checks of illegal aliens recently, while Washington County Sheriff Nate Brooksby said the amount of fentanyl seized in his county has increased dramatically.
“The United States of America is currently being invaded because of a lack of leadership in Washington,” Wilson said.
Disputing the claim that Utah is a “sanctuary state” for illegal immigrants, Wilson said, “It’s not that there aren’t illegal immigrants here. They’re growing more and more every day and this is a real problem.”
“And the sad thing is, this is being done for political purposes,” he continued. “Nobody’s saying this, but I’ll say this: I believe this is being done for political purposes. These illegal immigrants are going to be counted in the next census, which will determine the apportionment of congressional seats. And there are many cities and states in this country that want to give these illegal immigrants the right to vote. This is not acceptable.”
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a few municipalities and states have laws allowing foreign nationals to vote in some local elections, but the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act bars foreign nationals from voting in federal elections.
Congressional apportionment is based on each state’s resident population, which, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, includes “all people (citizens and noncitizens) living in the United States at the time of the census.”
“They should not have the right to vote, they should not be counted in the next census,” Wilson said of illegal immigrants. “If we remove the incentive to do that, then there’s no incentive for this open borders policy. But in my opinion, this is a political ploy that is doing immeasurable harm to this country.”
A national voter ID law is “the one exception” to Wilson’s belief that states, not the federal government, should oversee election laws.
Wilson blamed President Joe Biden for the current “emergency” on the US-Mexico border and said he could close the border himself without congressional action. While Wilson acknowledged that Congress should enact “full immigration reform” to expedite the asylum process and implement a “remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers, he said, “until the border is closed, a second round of talks is effectively not happening, and probably shouldn’t be happening.”
The state’s sheriffs are speaking out against what they call a “misleading” memo from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The memo was first brought up by Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs, another candidate for the Senate race. Last fall, Staggs jumped on the idea that Utah was a “sanctuary state” for illegal immigrants and called on elected officials to “set aside their agendas and consider the consequences of continuing down this path.”
Staggs’ statement drew immediate condemnation from sheriffs, who called the original ICE memo “misinformation.” Officials told KSL.com that the memo has since been retracted. Utah County Sheriff and Utah Sheriffs Association President Mike Smith issued a statement in response, saying, “We are disappointed in Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs for issuing a naive and ignorant press release endorsing ICE’s liberal policies that blame state leadership for ICE’s failures. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Other candidates in Utah, such as gubernatorial candidate Phil Lyman, a state assemblyman from Blanding, have also argued that Utah is a sanctuary state for illegal immigrants, drawing further backlash from elected officials.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox, who is seeking reelection and has endorsed Senator Wilson’s campaign, has repeatedly called for clarification on the issue.
“Let me be as clear as possible: Utah is not a sanctuary state,” he said during a virtual town hall in March. “It has never been a sanctuary state and it will never be a sanctuary state. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying. They are lying because they want to use fear and division to gain power.”
Sheriff Arbon and the other sheriffs in attendance again denounced the claim that Utah is a sanctuary state, blaming instead a lack of communication by ICE officials and federal policies that impose burdensome restrictions on holding undocumented immigrants in county jails.
“Their own standards make it virtually impossible to hold ICE detainers,” Cache County Sheriff Chad Jensen said, adding that as for sanctuary states, “that’s absolutely, 100 percent not true.”
