While the U.S. Supreme Court just temporarily blocked asking about U.S. citizenship in next year’s census, officials who work with Utah immigrants said the proposal already created plenty of damage — and many still fear that participating somehow could lead to deportation.
With an estimated 110,000 undocumented immigrants in Utah, missing them and other citizen-members of their families in the count could cost the state millions of dollars each year in lost federal aid that is distributed through population-based formulas.
“Everything collected by the federal government or any government agency is being seen as something that might jeopardize someone’s family — especially families with mixed status,” where some are citizens and others are not, said Le Min Xiao, director of Salt Lake County’s Office of New Americans.