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SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake City has garnered status as a "certified welcoming" city, reflecting its efforts to reach out to immigrants and foster a sense of belonging among city residents.
"Salt Lake City is a place where diversity thrives, and we are committed to ensuring that every individual, no matter their background, feels a sense of belonging here," Mayor Erin Mendenhall said in a statement. Securing the status is a big step in "breaking down barriers and creating pathways for everyone to call our city home. We will continue to build a community where everyone feels valued, heard and welcomed."
The city applied last year to Welcoming America for the status, in part because the certification process involves a review of city policies and programs that provides city officials with a gauge of strengths and areas of potential improvement, said Andrew Wittenberg, spokesman for the city. "The process allows us to look at what the city is doing in terms of serving its residents, including new Americans," he said.
Welcoming America, which oversees granting of "certified welcoming" status, is a nonprofit organization that touts the import of fostering a sense of inclusivity as a means of promoting prosperity. Twenty-five cities and counties across the country, including Salt Lake County, have earned the status. "Our mission is to support communities building a welcoming society where every person, including immigrants, can fully contribute and shape our shared prosperity. Our vision is a just world in which we each belong, prosper and thrive in the place we now call home, no matter where we came from," reads the organization's website.
Many of the guidelines governing naming of welcoming cities center around efforts and initiatives meant to assure involvement of immigrants, among others, in economic, educational and civic matters. Salt Lake County had the largest foreign-born bloc of residents as of 2022 among Utah's 29 counties, 152,642 or 12.9% of the population, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released last April. The foreign-born population includes naturalized citizens, legal permanent residents, undocumented immigrants and others.
Immigration can be a controversial issue, however, and the presence in particular of immigrants living here illegally has drawn fire from many political leaders and others in Utah and across the country. The guidelines don't distinguish between classes of immigrants, but the Welcoming America website differentiates "certified welcoming" status from being a sanctuary city, a designation regarded derisively by some as a locale tolerant of immigrants here illegally.
"While there is no legal definition for a 'sanctuary city,' a common thread among sanctuary policies is limiting cooperation with federal immigration officials," the website reads. The organization's guidelines, by contrast, emphasize "building trust and relationships between law enforcement and local community members as well as providing education to immigrants about their rights and responsibilities under the law."
As for benefits, Welcoming America said welcoming status can be a plus in drawing Fortune 500 companies and other businesses seeking locations that have a diverse workforce. It can also help draw international sporting events seeking locations with a diverse fan base. The designation, Wittenberg said, reinforces Salt Lake City "as a global destination and inclusive forward-thinking city as we prepare to host the 2034 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games."
Salt Lake City's Know Your Neighbor program, meant to aid refugees, figured in garnering welcoming status, the city said, along with Salt Lake City Arts Council programming and other initiatives. The city didn't have to pay to go through the certification process.
