- Provo Mayor Michelle Kaufusi and other city leaders hosted a bilingual open house geared to the Latino community.
- The event aimed to spur increased involvement of the Latino community in city affairs.
- A Provo police statement was read at the event noting that the department's officers are not immigration agents.
PROVO — If members of the Latino community aren't comfortable coming to Provo City Hall, Mayor Michelle Kaufusi has made it a point of reaching out to them.
"They are a huge part of our community. They need to be at the table," she said. "I tell them maybe someday, 'You'll be mayor.'"
She, Councilman George Handley and other city leaders took the efforts another step forward on Thursday, hosting a bilingual open house geared to the city's Latino and Spanish-speaking community and inviting them to take an active role in city matters. The city hosted a similar event last year and plans to continue.
"We want them to feel like the government works for them and they have opportunities to get involved," Handley said. He also wants the Latino community to feel comfortable coming forward to air their concerns.
As is, both Kaufusi and Handley say involvement by Latinos in city affairs is minimal, hardly commensurate with their share of the population. Spanish is spoken in some 18% of Provo households, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, and the officials want that segment involved.
"We rely on people coming to us, and if certain neighborhoods or certain sectors of our city don't ever speak, we never hear from them, then their concerns are not going to get addressed," Handley said.
While immigration is a topic of intense debate across the country, with President Donald Trump prioritizing the detention and deportation of immigrants in the country illegally, Handley said his focus is on hearing from Provo's residents.
"I would say it's just not my job to ask for proof of citizenship from people. ... We welcome hearing from all kinds of people. We don't try to filter people out," he said.
In that vein, the Provo Police Department issued a statement Thursday, read to applause at the open house, emphasizing that the department isn't involved in federal efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. Unlike an increasing number of sheriff's offices and other law enforcement agencies entering into cooperative agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement — including the Utah County Sheriff's Office — the Provo Police Department doesn't have officers deputized to work with federal immigration authorities.
"Provo police officers are not immigration officers and do not have the authority to arrest a person for their immigration status alone," reads the statement, posted on the department's Facebook page. "We do not ask for a person's status when documenting a crime report or offering victim services. We provide services regardless of citizenship or residential status."
Antonio Valbuena attended Thursday's event, held at the Provo City Library and dubbed Tu Voz Importa or Your Voice Matters in English. Originally from Venezuela, he now lives in Herriman and runs an organization, Bridges 21, that tries to foster ties between Utah's Latinos and community leaders.
"People are afraid. They're afraid of taking part in public events," he said, citing the intense national focus on immigration, which has put some in the Latino community on guard.
Indeed, he welcomes events like the open house, says he's unaware of other similar outreach efforts in other Utah cities. "You only hear bad news about the Latino community," he said. "But there are many people doing good things. We have to show the totality, the good and beautiful things that are being done."
Jackie Larson, executive director of Elevate Utah, which works with Utah County's Latino and immigrant population, said part of the barrier to increased involvement by Latino immigrants in particular is distrust of the governments in their native countries.
"I think in a lot of places where people come from, government is not always to be trusted, civil officials are corrupt," she said. "Here, it's kind of a different story. Obviously, we have a wonderful mayor, wonderful City Council members that care about the community and ... want them to be involved."
City leaders answered prewritten questions from the public in Spanish and English at the event and explained how city government works. Two Peruvian restaurants offered free food and a Mexican folkloric dance group performed for those in attendance.
