To best serve our membership, we have launched a Public Policy section in our website with survey capabilities to capture what priority areas are most important LACC members.
The LACC has identified various policy areas of priority:

Economic Development – The LACC supports and fosters entrepreneurship in our community. Through our Jump Start Initiative, we work with community and business partners to create more business activity in Utah. We are working diligently to implement programs that will assist ethnic

businesses in obtaining procurement opportunities with both government and corporate entities.  We support legislation that furthers Economic Development and Business in Utah. We oppose legislation that is anti business. There is a bill that the LACC vehemently opposes, H.B. 262 Sub1  (Rep. S. Sandstrom, sponsor), which calls for applicants for a business license issued by a municipality or a county to provide the municipality or county with documentation of the applicant’s lawful presence in the United States and requires an applicant for a license issued by the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing (DOPL) to provide the division with documentation of the applicant’s lawful presence in the United States. The LACC defeated a similar bill H.B. 285 S01 (Rep. S. Sandstrom) during the 2008 Legislative Session and is working with other organizations and local units of government to defeat it again.

Immigration – The Chamber supports fair and comprehensive immigration reform at a federal level. We do not support the implementation of S.B. 81. The Chamber understands that legislators are very frustrated by the inaction of the federal government in the past in passing said reform. However, there is a new administration that has repeatedly stated that immigration reform is imminent. With budget shortfalls at the state level, we support legislation that will delay the implementation of S.B. 81. We support the following bills: H.B. 107 “Economic Impact of Illegal Aliens” (Rep. S. Clark) and S.B. 113 “Delayed Effective Date for Illegal Immigration Legislation” (Sen. P. Jones). We supported S.C.R. 1 “Concurrent Resolution Requesting a Federal Waiver to Establish an Employer-sponsored Work Program”. 

Healthcare – The majority of the businesses the Latin American Chamber of Commerce (LACC) serves are immigrants of Latino extraction. Our business owners fall under a demographic marked by a variety of health disparities. Without adequate healthy habits, a community falls asunder. We support legislation such as S.B. 225 (Sen. L. Robles) that waives the five year waiting period for legal immigrant children to be covered by CHIP.

Education - To be competitive in the global market, we must have an edge in educating our workforce. Unfortunately, our fastest growing segments to the population are also the ones experiencing the highest dropout rates in the state. We support legislation that promotes education and oppose legislation that reduces educational programs, teacher wages,  and that creates a deeper educational gap for minority students. We stand firmly against bills that will repeal or impact In-State Tuition for undocumented children. We strongly opposed H.B. 208 “Modification of Exemption from Non-Resident Tuition” (Rep. Greenwood) for attempting to take a surreptitious backdoor approach to amend 53B-8-106, as enacted by Laws of Utah 2002, Chapter 230 (otherwise known as HB 144 of the 2002 Legislative Session).
 
International - Many businesses affiliated to the Chamber have very close ties to their countries of origin. We are in a global economy and we support free trade. Our Utah Latin Expo scheduled in October 2009 at the South Town Convention Center is already attracting interest at an international level. We support legislation that promotes trade.

The Chamber has identified and is presently working on more bills. For more information regarding Public Policy, please contact us. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it