{"id":5138,"date":"2026-02-10T20:59:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T03:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saltlakedsa.org\/?p=5138"},"modified":"2026-04-28T11:06:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T17:06:26","slug":"never-again-revisiting-the-tragedy-of-mass-detention-in-utah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saltlakedsa.org\/es\/2026\/02\/10\/never-again-revisiting-the-tragedy-of-mass-detention-in-utah\/","title":{"rendered":"Never Again: Revisiting the Tragedy of Mass Detention in Utah"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This is an opinion piece written collaboratively by the Migrant Rights Working Group and was not voted on at a general membership meeting. Opinion pieces from sub-bodies do not reflect the opinions of all members and are not chapter approved statements.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without reservation, the Salt Lake Democratic Socialists of America (SL DSA) firmly oppose any and all immigration detention within Utah. We reject the Federal Government\u2019s racist, nativist, and exploitative approach to immigration policy, and are appalled at the intentional and cruel humanitarian crisis it has created. Recent leaks uncovering plans for an immigration detention facility in Utah threaten to continue the state\u2019s ugly history of participation in large scale, racially-targeted internment. These past and present attempts to suppress immigrant communities are not only an affront to the fundamental notion of intrinsic human dignity, but also a cudgel wielded against the interests of the working class. They obscure the identities of the true architects of our exploitation, redirecting responsibility for our justified feelings of bitterness and discontentment away from oppressive regimes and economies and onto the precarious and undocumented; those who are, in fact, our allies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past several months, internal ICE documents have emerged that outline a plan utilizing US military resources to establish \u201cfacilities to house as many as 10,000 people each<\/a>\u201d in several locations across the country, including Salt Lake City. After the failure of Florida\u2019s taxpayer funded \u201cAlligator Alcatraz” which was shuttered after violating detainee rights, disregarding local government and tribal rights, and dismissing environmental concerns, one would think that Utah\u2019s leaders would express more hesitation to ride shotgun on this wild spectacle of waste and abuse. Sadly, it is not so: Utah\u2019s state-level and congressional leadership, in submissive fealty to Trump’s agenda, refused to comment<\/a>, much less openly oppose the effort. With new leaks indicating a warehouse near Salt Lake City International Airport as the intended location, there has been mixed response from local officials. The only official acknowledgement from Salt Lake City has been a rather passive reminder from Mayor Erin Mendenhall<\/a> that a detention center at the location would run afoul of local zoning ordinances; on the other hand, Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson admirably condemned the plan and committed the county to fighting it \u201cusing every available tool.<\/a>\u201d In the face of such inconsistent leadership, we salute the people of Utah that showed up<\/a> in the early hours of January 13th <\/sup>to make their opposition perfectly clear. While the owners of the rumored detention center site ultimately denied their intent to sell or lease to ICE<\/a>, it is abundantly clear that ICE\u2019s continue working to build the infrastructure necessary to execute their authoritarian directive. Considering today\u2019s fresh atrocities and with historical perspective, SL DSA\u2019s stance is rooted in one critical message: never again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNever again:\u201d a much-needed refrain which calls us to remember Utah\u2019s record of hosting racial concentration camps within its borders. In 1942, Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066<\/a>, directing the Secretary of War to \u201cprescribe military areas [\u2026] from which any or all persons may be excluded\u201d and provide for them \u201cother accommodation as may be necessary.” EO 9102<\/a> established the War Relocation Authority, and assigned it the task of \u201c[effectuating] a program for the removal\u2026of the persons or classes of persons designated under [EO 9066], and for their relocation.\u201d In the text of these two executive orders, which speciously argued for the need to protect against foreign espionage and sabotage, Roosevelt identifies a single justification: national security. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two of the sites that provided for that relocation program, which in total detained approximately 120,000 people of Japanese descent<\/a>, were the Topaz War Relocation Center in the desert west of Delta, Utah, and the Dalton Wells Isolation Center, a disciplinary camp outside Moab. From 1942 to 1945, 11,000 people were incarcerated in the Topaz camp, making it the fifth largest city in Utah over its three years of operation. Prisoners were given \u201cloyalty questionnaires,”<\/a> with those not deemed sufficiently loyal sent to more restrictive isolation facilities like Dalton Wells. A unique stain on state history, these concentration camps were the result of a government empowering itself to decide whose rights were sacred, and whose were forfeit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The stage is set for another monumental crime of a scale that promises to shock Utahns to our core; and in this crime, we will be complicit. We cannot say we did not see it coming. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now, these actions are justified with the same warlike rhetoric and appeal to the maintenance of national security. Equating immigration to a \u201cforeign invasion\u201d and making use of military largesse, ICE and the US military are coordinating on a facility in Utah that could have a capacity nearly the size of Topaz. This facility could have up to 10,000 beds<\/a>, with detainees potentially housed in weather-vulnerable soft-sided tents<\/a>. We are now living through a moment that demonstrates that although history doesn\u2019t repeat, it does rhyme: the Trump regime engages in racial profiling<\/a>, deports citizens<\/a> and legal residents, targets and sanctions those critical of the regime, and offers excuses and justifications for its most violent excesses<\/a>. The stage is set for another monumental crime of a scale that promises to shock Utahns to our core; and in this crime, we will be complicit. We cannot say we did not see it coming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

SL DSA\u2019s stance is one that increasingly resonates with the people of Utah<\/a> as we face a hostile government intent on stripping away our rights. We demand: no detention centers in Utah, no cooperation with ICE, and full solidarity with our immigrant community. We reject any false distinction between \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cbad\u201d immigrants, \u201clegal\u201d and \u201cillegal\u201d immigrants, and immigrating the \u201cright way\u201d and the \u201cwrong way.\u201d These distinctions are nothing more than the flimsy judgements of an immoral power structure with no respect for our rights, protections, or human worth. Finally, we reject the increasingly brazen lies of the Trump administration, as it claims \u201cIf you are here legally and contributing, you have nothing to fear.\u201d In fact, cases of arrest based on ICE’s refusal to accept documentation<\/a>, employment records<\/a>, payment of taxes<\/a>, or even while following the official immigration process all fall apart under the barest scrutiny<\/a>. There is no logic, no rule of law, and no respect for human beings in ICE\u2019s \u201cenforcement\u201d activities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our ongoing work, our goal is to mobilize, organize, and educate the working class, ultimately engendering and reinforcing solidarity within it. This objective necessarily must include working class immigrants. If a portion of the working class is deemed unworthy of protection, the rights of the working class as a whole cannot be assured. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words on a page, however, are not enough. As wages are depressed, as landlords are permitted to use immigration status to threaten tenants, as bosses and managers benefit from workers\u2019 stolen labor, the consequences of this authoritarian regime will affect us all. This regime and the capitalist economic structure that gave birth to it requires systemic exploitation in order to sustain themselves. At its best, it must demand silence; at its worst, it requires complicity and total obedience. In order to justify this system and its cruel repercussions, we are invited to despise and ostracize our fellow human beings. As socialists, we refuse. We invite you to join us in that refusal, and struggle with us to build a better world that is inclusive of us all.

ETA: Credit where credit is due to Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, who in her 2026 State of the City address<\/a>, elaborated on her firm opposition to ICE operations in the city.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, there is no terrible thing happening coming for you in some distant future. But know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness? Forget pity. Forget even the dead, if you must. But at least fight against the theft of your soul.\u201d

\u2015 Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an opinion piece written collaboratively by the Migrant Rights Working Group and was not voted on at a general membership meeting. Opinion pieces from sub-bodies do not reflect the opinions of all members and are not chapter approved statements. Without reservation, the Salt Lake Democratic Socialists of America (SL DSA) firmly oppose any 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