Handful of Utah protesters demonstrate after Trump inks $70B immigration bill

KEY TAKEAWAYS

President Donald Trump signed a $70 billion immigration bill into law Wednesday and a smattering of protestors demonstrated around Utah.
The protests occurred outside the Utah offices of the state's four U.S. House members in Ogden, Provo, Bountiful and West Jordan.
Funding earmarked in the bill will go to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol.

OGDEN — President Donald Trump inked an immigration bill into law Wednesday, and a smattering of foes gathered outside the Utah offices of the state's four U.S. House members to demonstrate.

The measure providing $70 billion in funds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol should not have been approved "without some rules going forward," said David Belnap, one of 10 or so demonstrators outside the building housing U.S. Rep. Blake Moore's Ogden office. "We're letting them continue with the same blank check, doing what they're doing now. They're lying to our immigrants. We know that. They're breaking families apart."

Demonstrators also gathered Wednesday outside the Utah offices of U.S. Reps. Celeste Maloy in Bountiful, Mike Kennedy in Provo and Burgess Owens in West Jordan. Crowds were "pretty small" at each, according to Jamie Carter, who helped spread the word about the demonstrations.

While the immigration issue spurred numerous large demonstrations around Utah last winter and spring at high schools, outside the Utah Capitol and elsewhere, Wednesday's protests were considerably smaller. They were organized at the last minute, Carter said, and originally meant to occur before the House voted on the immigration measure, the Secure America Act.

The House, though, voted sooner than expected, Tuesday afternoon, approving the measure 214-212 along partisan lines, with all Republicans voting "aye." Trump signed it into law Wednesday morning.

Three of Utah's four House members, all Republicans, were silent on social media about the immigration bill, but Kennedy spoke out. He referenced earlier efforts by Democratic U.S. lawmakers to stall funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security given concerns prompted by the aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration carried out by the Trump administration, lauded by some, criticized by others. DHS oversees ICE and Customs and Border Patrol.

"What was the end result of Democrats' DHS shutdown? Effectively nothing beyond the partisan grandstanding, the clicks they knew it would generate online and real people forced to work without a paycheck," Kennedy said in a social media post. The GOP-led House "passed the aptly named Secure America Act, and the basic functions of national security and safety are back online. Proud to be on the team that stands with America's law enforcement and commonsense governance."

The protesters in Ogden, by contrast, took a different approach.

"I would like to see some sort of control. We do need customs and border enforcement. We need all of that. But they don't need a bigger budget than the state of Utah," said a man who identified himself only as Jorge. "What are they going to do with that?"

Don Conger, another demonstrator in Ogden, referenced the many images carried in the media of masked ICE agents aggressively carrying out immigration enforcement actions.

"I'm here because I get really tired of people with masks treating human beings as something less than human. We're dealing with people and they should be treated with the rights of human beings," he said. The $70 billion in funding, to last for three years, "is just putting fuel on the fire. I don't see this making them any less violent."

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