‘Stuck between a rock and a hard place’: Lawyers warn of arrests at Salt Lake immigration office  

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office in Salt Lake City is pictured on Dec. 5, 2025. (Annie Knox/Utah News Dispatch)

A 28-year-old Utah father applying for a green card arrived at a federal office in Salt Lake City on Tuesday planning to answer questions about his marriage and finances. Instead, he was arrested by immigration agents and brought to a detention center in Las Vegas, his lawyer said. 

Attorney Adam Crayk said Friday his client is among the first in Utah to be detained during an appointment with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which handles applications for green cards, citizenship and work authorization.

In the past, he said, “they’ve never been the enforcement arm.”

Similar arrests at the agency’s offices have been documented for months in other states like California and Florida. But Crayk said they didn’t start in Utah until roughly two weeks ago, with three of his clients detained there since. 

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The apparent escalation in enforcement follows a change in leadership at Salt Lake City’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, with a U.S. Border Patrol official now assigned to oversee its operations, Crayk said.  

ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not answer a request for comment sent via email Friday.

Crayk and fellow immigration attorney Nicholle Pitt White agree that those with upcoming appointments at the office face an incredibly difficult reality. 

Pitt White worries that ICE operations ramping up at the field office in Salt Lake City will create even more fear and drive immigrants further into the shadows rather than incentivize them to pursue legal status.

“There’s no safe way to do anything anymore,” she said

As people try to follow the law and secure a legal status, Pitt White said many now feel “really stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

“If you don’t show up, then they can send you to immigration court and ICE can arrest you anyway,” Crayk added. For those who go to their check-ins, he said, “if there’s some sort of thing they’ve determined you’re arrestable on, they’re going to arrest you.”

On Tuesday, homeland security agents noted the young father overstayed a visa after being brought to the United States as a child. They also said they considered a mark on his juvenile record to be a criminal conviction, though the case has since been expunged, the attorney said.  

And while his legal team expects he will eventually get a green card, they’re working to get him out of detention first.

Before the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, authorities did not cite juvenile matters as a basis for detaining someone, Crayk said. They have not recognized expungements in the adult system since the 1990s. 

Another of his clients completed the first step in a process waiving an earlier deportation order and allowing her to stay in the United States while she applies for a green card, according to copies of documents from her case with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

When she went to the office Nov.19 to get her fingerprints taken as part of the process, the 54-year-old woman was detained and later brought to Mexico, where she’s originally from, Crayk said. She had lived in the United States for 28 years, Crayk said.

She has traffic tickets but no criminal history, he added. 

ICE operations in Utah were relatively quiet — until an airport arrest shook SLC leaders

A third client detained at the office has a prior criminal conviction, he said.  

Pitt White is a liaison for the Utah Immigration Advocacy Coalition, which issued a community alert Thursday warning of the situation.

She told Utah News Dispatch she worries that this tactic is meant to “create fear, create panic” and encourage undocumented immigrants in the U.S. “to just leave, so that they don’t have to do any work to get them to go.” 

From California, Pitt White said she’s heard of instances of mothers “having their babies ripped out of their arms and being arrested by (ICE) at these interviews.” She added she’s thankful she hasn’t seen that happening in Utah, but she’s worried it could.

Pitt White said so far none of her own clients have been impacted, but she’s nervous for at least one client who had an interview at the field office scheduled for Friday. 

For immigrants who have an upcoming appointment with USCIS in Salt Lake City who aren’t already represented by an attorney, Pitt White encouraged them to have a consultation with an attorney before going. 

“I’m not saying they need to hire an attorney to go with them or anything like that, but I think that an attorney is going to be the best person to give them that risk assessment, so they can have that information and be prepared,” she said.  

She also noted there are nonprofits like the Wasatch Immigration Project based in Park City that does pro-bono work.