On June 14, 2024, Governor Cox released a statement on X condemning news that the city of Denver was sending migrants to Utah — without prior approval from Utah state officials.

“We recently learned that the Democrat mayor of Denver has been sending illegal immigrants to Utah without proper notification or approval,” Cox said. “This is completely unacceptable and follows on the failed catch-and-release policy of the Biden administration.”

A National Problem

“Catch-and-release” is a term referring to the border patrol practice of releasing migrants into a community while they await their immigration court hearings. This serves as an alternative to detention. 

In February, several Republican-led federal House committees condemned the Biden Administration’s approach to immigration. In a hearing conducted on Biden’s catch-and-release policy, these committees found Biden had “failed to detain most illegal aliens during removal proceedings.”

KUTV further reported that Denver sent roughly 2,000 migrants to Utah over the past two years this June. However, Jon Ewing, an employee of the Denver City County Department of Human Services, claimed migrants are free to decide where they want to go.

“Any individual who travels through our system makes their own decision on their destination,” Ewing told KUTV. “We are simply helping people connect with family, friends or existing support systems.”

Denver’s shipping of migrants to Utah is part of Denver’s “Newcomer Playbook.” It describes a 15-step program designed to help the city integrate new migrants. The first three steps include creating a single point of entry into Denver and clearly documenting immigration policy and procedures. Volunteer relocation, or an offer of “onward transportation to another destination,” is step four of the program. Despite this, city officials indicated seeing many of these migrants dropped off with nowhere to go.

Immigration in Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City Council Member Alejandro Puy recounted an incident involving a family that was sent to Salt Lake City from New York City.

“We learned a few months ago about a family that was sent to Salt Lake from New York earlier this year,” Puy explained. “It was a family of seven, all of them children, and they landed at the airport in Salt Lake City with no connections and no one waiting for them.”

Salt Lake City Police chief Mike Brown told KUTV that many of the migrants from Denver arrive “with very little information other than instructions to find a person in uniform to help.”

Salt Lake County has been finding it difficult to house these individuals. As of July 18, three of the primary shelters in the county were at 100% capacity

Puy claimed it is very difficult to increase funding to house individuals and increase resources in Salt Lake City. 

“[Salt Lake City] Health and Human Services doesn’t have funding for it that the counties do and the state does,” Puy said. “And they also don’t have either the willingness sometimes or the amount of funding that we need for something like that.”

The City of Salt Lake does spend a lot of money, Puy said, on contributing to shelters, food centers and other resources. The money comes from the state legislation and the county, he said. However, it is not enough and it’s difficult to distribute adequately. 

“I think we spent $12 million just on personnel [for homeless resources]. That is a big chunk of money that we are supposed to be using for other issues,” he said. “…We’re doing a lousy job, because we don’t have the funding nor the expertise.” 

Puy added the poor allocation of funds is ultimately due to the politicization surrounding both the migrant and homelessness crisis. He claims that neither the federal government nor the state want to solve these issues. 

“Most of [Utahn migrants], they’re escaping a war situation and the only thing that they want is to work, to pay taxes and be good citizens,” Puy said. 

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@JEmersonHagy