SALT LAKE CITY — Hedy Miller was teaching the basics of American democracy in the backroom of a suburban library. She had just finished explaining what it means to be a U.S. citizen.
Taxes are a responsibility. Free speech is a right. Voting is both.
She asked her seven students — green-card holders from Afghanistan, South Sudan, Guatemala and three other countries — to imagine they were justices on the Supreme Court: Whose rights would they prioritize?
“Look, this — democracy — it’s messy,” said Tadjim Marcel, 26, a refugee from the Central African Republic, who fled to the United States in 2011 because of war and threats to his family. “How do you balance helping one group while punishing another?”
The conversation inside Miller’s citizenship class unfolded just days after the second apparent assassination attempt of former president Donald Trump in September and as the polarized country prepared for another presidential election. In those moments of political violence, some, like Marcel, started to see echoes of the places they left behind. Others, like a refugee from Tibet, worried what Trump might do if elected but trusted American institutions to withstand any attacks. Still others feared a Kamala Harris presidency could destabilize the economy and therefore the country.
Among a group of refugees, recent immigrants and new citizens who left countries with less freedom and resettled in Utah, one of the few conservative states to welcome them, there was no consensus on how concerned they should be about American democracy collapsing. They debated alongside many Americans which presidential candidate would be best to uphold the country’s ideals.
Some in the state said they didn’t have time to consider that possibility as they try to set up a new life for themselves and, often, their families. Many said it’s far better here than the places they left, trusting the broader government to protect democracy even if they fear one candidate could attempt to dismantle it. But others worried that the widening divisions between Americans and deepening skepticism that elections are free and fair are setting the stage for the sort of instability they thought they had escaped.
“Coming from a country where democracy was not a thing, I am worried and know that it could be eroded slowly,” said Trhas Tafere, 44, who was born in Eritrea and left Ethiopia more than a decade ago. “When people focus on the divisions and what divides people, that’s the start.”
Interviews with more than two dozen immigrants and refugees in Utah in September offered a window into the complicated feelings among immigrants who have settled in a Trump-leaning state that has broadly welcomed their arrival, even as Trump has made curbing immigration a core theme of his campaign. A majority said they trust Harris to stabilize the government and make the United States a more welcoming place for people like them. About one third said they support Trump, in part because they believe he will save the country from economic turmoil and continued unrest.
They’re learning about American democracy in a longtime conservative state, one that voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 18 points and again for Trump over Biden by 20 points — though Biden won Salt Lake County, home to more than a million people and many of the state’s immigrants.
Of the 20 states with offices and staff focused on helping “New Americans,” only four are in states that Trump won in 2020. That includes Utah, home to 300,000 immigrants and a rapidly growing refugee and asylum-seeking population who help address a workforce shortage in the state.
While these new arrivals are warmly welcomed by top Republican leaders, including Gov. Spencer Cox, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to which many Utah residents belong, the sentiment isn’t shared by all in the state, especially some longtime residents who have watched their communities quickly transformed.
Lindsey Watson, 39, said she thinks American democracy is a “mess” because of the influx of immigrants — and that Harris was named the Democratic presidential nominee without a full primary. Watson voted for Barack Obama, then Trump and plans to vote for him again. She worries that Harris would allow even more people into the country, and White residents like her will start to feel like a cultural minority. She said she used to trust the government to help people like her. Not anymore, which she said has made her more distrustful of the electoral process.
“We need to put our people first,” said Watson, who owns several store fronts in a strip mall in South Salt Lake that she leases to Spanish-speaking immigrants.
Ninety miles north of Salt Lake City in Cache County, home to mountains and farms and factories littered with “Help wanted” signs, tensions have been building, said Katie Jensen, who runs the English Language Center of Cache Valley. Enrollment at the center has nearly doubled over the past two years to over 900.
“People have started asking me more questions recently centered around: ‘Why are you helping them?’” she said.
‘Democracy is strong enough … to withstand him’
Abdallah Ahmed fled Sudan to Salt Lake City in 2012 to escape arbitrary arrests, violence and suppressed speech.
The 49-year-old truck driver with a thin mustache has witnessed three American presidential elections, but he said this one is different. The rhetoric from all candidates is more divisive. There are more political attacks and less trust in the system. More warnings from top politicians and their supporters that this election could decide the fate of American democracy.
This will be the first time that Ahmed votes. He became an American citizen five years ago but didn’t participate until now because he felt his vote wouldn’t make a difference. No matter who won previous presidential elections, he felt it would still be a struggle for him to earn enough money for rent and fluently learn English.
The heightened tensions made this election feel different. He said the issues he cares most about are freedom, democracy and, above all, being able to live a comfortable life.
He most likely will cast his first ballot for Harris, he said, because he is concerned Trump could try to upend U.S. democracy, even as he trusts American institutions are too strong to be toppled.
After all, that’s what happened in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Ahmed said state and federal officials wouldn’t let Trump’s efforts succeed.
In Sudan, Ahmed saw people arrested for almost nothing. For publicly disagreeing with leaders. For not walking the party line. That’s not happening here, he said, a sign of a strong democracy. At least not yet.
But he’s heard through social media that Trump has said if he is elected again he’d go after his political rivals and seek retribution against those who have investigated him.
“That’s not the country I thought I was coming to,” he said in Arabic as he waited for an appointment at the Catholic Community Services of Utah, which helps refugees and new immigrants. “But even if Trump does what I heard he’s saying he’ll do, I think democracy is strong enough to withstand it. To withstand him.”
‘A bad economy leads to the erosion of democracy’
At a Venezuelan restaurant nearby in southern Salt Lake County, members of the Venezuelan Alliance of Utah gathered for lunch to discuss the stakes of American democracy in this election. Two of the four would be voting for the first time.
Oracio Perez, 31, plans to vote for Trump. He sees the chaos in his home country — where authoritarian socialist Nicolás Maduro’s regime has cracked down on dissent as the oil industry has cratered and the economy has contracted by 71 percent — in the state of American politics today.
Perez, a landscaper and small business owner, is one of about 20,000 Venezuelans in Utah, a population that has doubled in the past four years, according to the alliance. The state has become a destination for the millions of people fleeing the regime, especially as Venezuelans on social media tout the state to potential immigrants.
One account, called utahzolanos, Utahns in Spanish, has more than 250,000 followers and posts, everything from what Harris or Trump say about Venezuela to how to clean snow off car windshields.
Perez worries that if more Venezuelans and other immigrants come to his state, anti-immigrant sentiment will rise and life will become more difficult for him.
“It’s easy to take control when people are divided,” Perez said over a patacon maracucho, a Venezuelan sandwich made from fried plantains. “What has happened in my own country, it could absolutely happen here.”
As someone who came on a student visa to Brigham Young University, then stayed legally, Perez said he agrees with Trump’s claims that the influx of migrants is hurting the country’s economy and stability. He was dismayed Trump spread debunked claims that Haitians were eating pets, but he said he was more concerned about illegal immigration than Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.
“We came for the American Dream,” Perez said. “It seems like there’s no dream anymore.”
He and other Trump supporters said they trust the American election process — unlike in Venezuela, where Maduro remains in power, even though independent analyses show that he lost the July 28 election. They trust that their voice will matter and their vote will count, even if Trump sews doubt in that very process.
The assassination attempt of Trump in Pennsylvania this summer, followed by another apparent attempt in Florida, reminded Perez of Venezuela, of chaos, of instability he believes is a reflection of weak leadership by President Joe Biden. He worries about socialism and that Harris’s policies will destroy the economy, leading to more unrest and eventually more government control.
“This democracy is stable, but it’s changing quickly, and the economy is hurting,” he said to the others at the table. “And a bad economy leads to the erosion of democracy.”
‘Democracy here could change all of a sudden’
Others see what’s happening in America as a warning.
A major candidate is questioning the election’s integrity and attacking immigrants, divisions are widening and media silos are narrowing. They said that while the United States is not yet crumbling, the road to eroding democracy is slow, until it isn’t. They worry Trump will fire career civil servants and replace them with loyalists who would place the former president above the country.
Margarita Onda, 35, originally fled Equatorial Guinea to Atlanta in 2022. She came to Utah over the summer because she thought the people here had family values, believe in God and would offer more work opportunities. An asylum-seeker, she now worries she could be deported if Trump wins.
If Trump is president, “democracy here could change all of a sudden,” said Onda, who works at a hair salon while studying for her GED and supports Harris, although she cannot vote. “I don’t think people really understand that.”
She’s started going on social media less, as clips of the former president warning about the “enemy from within” keep popping up.
“I’m trying to find a future for my kids,” she said, all seven of whom still live in Equatorial Guinea. “This can be a great country with so much opportunity. Will my kids get to see that happen?”
Marcel, the green-card holder from CAR, took his citizenship test in early October. He was so overcome with emotion when he learned that he had passed that the test moderator asked if he was OK. His naturalization ceremony was in late October.
“Now I can have a voice in my government,” he said. “I’m not sure if I trust my vote will fully be counted, but I at least have to try.”