As deportation debate sizzles, data sheds light on Utah's immigrant population

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Data compiled by Voices for Utah Children and the Immigration Research Initiative helps illuminate Utah's immigrant population.
Utah is home to some 304,000 immigrants, and an estimated 110,000 of them are here illegally.
In 2022, those in Utah illegally paid $235.1 million in state and local taxes.

SALT LAKE CITY — Finding data specific to Utah's population of immigrants, particularly those here illegally, can be complicated.

The population in the country illegally isn't necessarily counted on any official U.S. registry.

But Voices for Utah Children, teaming with the Immigration Research Initiative, has pulled together a collection of data that offers a more comprehensive snapshot of the state's population of immigrants, both legal and otherwise. The organization advocates for immigrants, particularly immigrant children and families.

Its compilation of data, released in April, focuses on what the organization sees as the positive economic impact of immigrants. Many, including President Donald Trump, decry immigrants here illegally as a drain on public resources and a public safety threat, and he's made their detention and deportation a priority. Either way, the numbers — drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Pew Research Center, the Migration Policy Institute and other organizations — help shed light on the topic and the role in Utah of immigrants here illegally. The immigration Research Initiative touts itself as a "nonpartisan think tank on immigrant integration."

Here are some of the figures:

As of 2023, Utah was home to 304,000 immigrants, around 8.9% of Utah's population, and 175,000 were not citizens. Of the 175,000, around 110,000 were here illegally, reads the report, citing Pew estimates. However, it noted other estimates of the population of those here illegally compiled by the Immigration Research Initiative — nearly 99,900, according to the Center for Migration Studies, and 89,000, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
The report, citing numbers from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, states that in 2022, those in Utah illegally paid $235.1 million in state and local taxes. The institute estimates that that figure would grow by $57.4 million if the immigrants were granted legal status.
Immigrants, whether here legally or illegally, filled 24,000 construction posts in Utah, 18% of the total, and accounted for 13% of the U.S. workforce in the sector.
Immigrants, legal or otherwise, accounted for around 6,240 of the 24,000 cooks in Utah, some 26% of the total.
Another 6,000 immigrants worked in the state as janitors, 21% of the state total. Around 5,000 were maids or housekeepers, 41% of Utah's total; 4,000 worked in landscaping, 25% of the total; and 2,000 were nail technicians, 54%.
Beneficiaries in Utah of the Deferred Access for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, numbered around 7,090. Those brought to the country illegally by their parents as children may apply to remain and work in the country under the program, focus of an ongoing court challenge and attacks by Trump during his first term as president.

The report by Voices for Utah Children and the Immigration Research Initiative argues that detaining and deporting immigrants would have an adverse impact on the state economy. Deportation of immigrants here illegally is a priority of Trump and the focus of intense national debate.

"Detention and deportation of these workers would dramatically decrease affordability and availability of important goods and services," reads the report. Deportations could create some "offsetting" savings for state and local governments, it went on, "but these are likely to be small since recent immigrants and people who are undocumented are excluded from many public benefits."

The report further noted that Utah's labor force is "constrained," with the unemployment rate totaling 3.1% as of last March. "Employers are already straining to find employees; eliminating large numbers of workers from the labor force will not help," the report reads.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.