Sen. Allen Christensen says he is withdrawing legislation that sought to require legal immigrants to reside in the state five years before they could qualify for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
He had said his SB48 aimed to encourage self-reliance and to curb creeping “socialism.” But critics called it a mean-spirited attack against new legal immigrants, who are mostly Latino.
“I just didn’t have the political support I need for it,” Christensen, R-North Ogden, said this week.
A new poll for The Salt Lake Tribune and the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics shows that a majority of Utahns opposed the legislation — by a 50-42 percent margin.