As ICE Violence Escalates, One Utah Lawmaker Says “Heaven Has an Immigration Policy”

When Leaders Appeal to Heaven Instead of Answering for the Dead

This moment is heavy in a way that’s hard to describe without sounding dramatic, and yet anything less would be dishonest.

People were killed by the state. Again. Out in the open, in public, captured on video, witnessed by neighbors, mourned by families who will never be the same. There was no trial. No jury. No moment where anyone stopped to ask whether force was necessary, whether restraint was required, or whether a law was even being broken. Armed agents acted. People died. And then the rest of us were left to absorb it.

Many of us spent the weekend in that familiar, sickened rhythm: refreshing the news, reading and watching over and over, trying to understand how this keeps happening and what it says about the country we are living in now.

Protesting. Yelling with your friends, trying to do anything about it. Trying to escape to social media or distractions, only to be met with more videos. Trying to do normal things while carrying the knowledge that the government is executing people, and no one is held accountable.

We won’t claim to have the right words; we’re not sure anyone does right now. But it isn’t just sadness or anger. It’s some kind of disorienting realization that we are watching history harden around us. Seeing the rules and rights we were told mattered, dissolving right in front of our eyes.

And layered on top of that grief is the growing realization that many of the people in power do not seem to feel the weight of this at all. That gap between the gravity most people are carrying and the ease with which leaders continue on makes these moments even more unbearable.

It was in that headspace that a Utah lawmaker, Senator Todd Weiler, responded to public concern about ICE activity with this sentence:

“I’m pretty sure heaven has an immigration policy.”

The comment came last week during a hearing of the Utah Senate Judiciary Committee, where every Republican on the committee is white, American-born. None have characteristics that would put them at risk of being questioned, detained, or disappeared into a federal system they insist is orderly and lawful – a system they are almost certain will never turn on them.

Lawmakers were debating a bill that would have placed limits on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in “sensitive places” like churches, libraries, and schools. Spaces where people gather to pray, to mourn, to learn, to seek help, and to be safe. The bill also addressed the use of face coverings by ICE agents, a practice that has made accountability nearly impossible in communities already living with fear.

It was a serious bill and it was never going to pass. The hearing was staged by the GOP supermajority, not to seriously consider its merits, but to create a public venue to shut down a fellow legislator who is running for Congress, to demonstrate loyalty to federal enforcement, and to signal whose lives are worthy of protection and whose are not.

During public testimony, a member of the public spoke to the moral contradiction at the center of this debate. They asked how lawmakers who so often invoke Christianity and faith in their public lives could reconcile that identity with support for ICE actions, especially when this legislation would have limited ICE operations in churches and other places of worship.

And then the joke. Heaven has an immigration policy.

Heaven does not carry out raids.
Heaven does not detain children.
Heaven does not shoot observers in the street or through a car window.

Those are human actions. They are carried out by agents of the state, under policies written, defended, and funded by people in power.

Appealing to heaven reframes that violence as ordained rather than chosen. It suggests this suffering is not the result of policy, discretion, or force but of cosmic order. And therefore not something we are entitled to challenge, grieve, or stop.

When the state kills people and a lawmaker answers with “heaven has an immigration policy,” what he is really saying is: do not ask us to take responsibility for the harm we are causing. This is normal. This is settled. This is not up for debate.

But let’s be clear about who bears the violence that these representatives refuse to acknowledge. It falls overwhelmingly on immigrants, on people of color, on families who already live under constant surveillance, suspicion, and threat. It falls on people whose existence is already treated as provisional.

And the pain is compounded by a pattern we have seen over and over again – one that shapes whose suffering we witness and whose we are allowed to ignore. The reason so many people are paying attention, the reason the outrage breaks through, is because the violence disrupted the illusion that state force only falls on “other people.” The fact that Renee Good and Alex Pretti are white does not take away from the horrific acts of violence against them, but they are only two of the nine people killed during ICE operations in the last month – the only two who are white.

Because visibility has never been evenly distributed. And violence did not begin this month.

Tensions around ICE are at an all-time high. There is reporting that a new ICE detention facility is being built in Salt Lake City, on the west side, one of the few areas of the state that is majority-minority. Schools, churches, and community spaces in immigrant and Latino communities are seeing documented drops in participation. Crime, especially domestic violence, is being underreported out of fear that calling for help could lead to deportation instead of protection. Medical care is being delayed or avoided entirely for the same reason.

Countless people died in federal detention or at the hands of ICE in 2025. Families are being torn apart by detentions and deportations. More than 3,800 children have been taken into ICE custody since Trump took office. People have been disappeared into a system with no transparency, no accountability, and no meaningful way back.

It’s just background noise. The cost of enforcement. The price of order. The kind of violence this country has learned to tolerate as long as it happens to the “right” people.

Anyone who knows an immigrant – who loves one, lives alongside one, has shared meals and birthdays and fear with one – would never joke about this. Anyone who has watched the videos of Renee Good or Alex Pretti’s killings, or thought about a terrified child detained alone, would not find this funny. And no one should be asked to relive their trauma to educate people who have shown such a profound lack of interest in understanding it.

The facade of “Utah nice” is gone. The idea that things are done “the Utah way” has collapsed under the weight of what we are watching.

If you believe the state has the right to be the judge, jury, and executioner, then just say that.
If you believe we should only have a single branch of government, then defend that.
If you believe some lives are expendable in service of order, then own that.

But do not invoke heaven to launder what is being done by human hands.

You do not get to appeal upward to avoid looking directly at the people being harmed on the ground.

Because when confronted with state violence, leaders have a choice. They can reckon with it, or they can sanctify it. And when power chooses sanctification over accountability, it is telling you exactly how little the dead are expected to matter.

A government that answers death with theology is telling you it has no intention of stopping the killing.

Abolish ICE. Defund DHS. Put every ICE agent who has committed a crime on trial.

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Supporting Minneapolis Communities

For those looking to respond in a tangible way, we’ve included links below to Minneapolis-based organizations providing legal support, mutual aid, and direct assistance to families affected by ICE violence. These are not the only organizations and if you can’t provide money, there are many actions you can take, including contacting your representatives.