Gov. Spencer Cox mentioned Thursday that he intends to sign a bill that some say could exclude undocumented kids and teens from participating in sports and other extracurricular activities.

HB209 would demand somebody interested in playing sports or participating in an extracurricular activity at a private or public college to give particular identifying documentation. That documentation involves: a birth certificate, a state driver license or passport, or any federally recognized identification like 1 issued by the Division of Homeland Safety.

Cox mentioned he intended to sign the bill on Wednesday, but was alerted to issues about what it may possibly imply for young undocumented Utahns. He mentioned he paused, contacted the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, and got assurance that the bill was intended to give youth far more access to sports, not significantly less.

“I am organizing to the sign the bill,” Cox mentioned Thursday throughout his month-to-month news conference. “But what I did was I got a guarantee from the bill’s sponsor that we would appear at this more than the subsequent month and we would speak to all the higher schools, all the middle schools in the state. And if there are students who would be impacted by this, we will contact a specific session to come in and adjust the bill.

“We’re not attempting to exclude anyone from playing.”

Teuscher told The Salt Lake Tribune that someone’s birth certificate can be from any state or nation, and can be “any official record” that includes someone’s date of birth, spot of birth, sex and parentage. For the reason that of that, Teuscher does not think the law will have any influence on undocumented youth.

“The only situation exactly where somebody wouldn’t be capable to play would be some undocumented particular person that comes more than that occurs to enroll in higher college — for the reason that if they’d been right here a handful of years, then they would have some other documentation in spot that would qualify right here,” Teuscher mentioned. “But say they enroll in higher college, and they want to play sports, they can not get a hold of everyone else that has a copy of the document, they can not attain out to their dwelling nation to get a document, what ever it is. And in reality, my understanding is, that just does not exist.”

Other folks think it will be far more of an problem than the lawmaker thinks. Brianna Puga, an immigrant rights neighborhood organizer at Comunidades Unidas, told The Tribune that though there are options to giving a birth certificate, “the requirement to show a federal or state ID for people who can’t present a birth certificate will discriminate against undocumented students as undocumented students can’t give such documents.”

Alejandro Callejas participated in sports as a higher-schooler in Utah, such as football, soccer and swimming. He was also on the debate group. He was capable to participate in these activities unencumbered, with no intervention from the state government or the Utah Higher College Activities Association.

Callejas mentioned he now fears that HB209 could adjust that for his loved ones members and buddies.

“A lot of the buddies that I know, and the tiny siblings of some of the buddies I have would be impacted on that,” mentioned Callegas, who was born in El Salvador but has lived in Utah for the final 15 years. “They wouldn’t be capable to participate, which would be a bummer for the reason that a lot of them are extremely talented young men and women.”

Puga hoped that Cox would make time to speak to some men and women from the undocumented neighborhood and hear their issues. She also wanted Cox to veto the bill.

“There’s a lot of worry, there’s a lot of anxiousness, there’s a lot of anxiety for the reason that students wouldn’t be capable to attempt out for extracurricular activities, for the basketball group, for the soccer group,” Puga told The Tribune. “They wouldn’t have access to prospective scholarships or post-secondary possibilities primarily based on their athletic skills or their skills in other extracurricular activities.

“This would additional marginalize the undocumented neighborhood and young people as effectively who have currently been stigmatized by their status.”

Puga indicated a “call to action” would be organized if Cox did not grant the meeting Comunidades Unidas is asking for.

Utah’s undocumented population is estimated at 89,000, per the Migration Policy Institute. About 7,000 are in between the ages of three to 17.

Most of HB209 specifics what is expected of a student in order to participate in sports at a public or private college. Its original intent was to make it simpler for dwelling-schooled youngsters to advantage from sports and extracurricular activities, Teuscher, who’s also an lawyer, mentioned.

The language detailing specifications for a birth certificate or other documentation came from HB463, a failed bill by sponsored by Kera Birkeland, R-Morgan. Final year, Birkeland shepherded HB11, legislation aimed at banning transgender girls from competing in sports. Gov. Spencer Cox vetoed that bill, the legislature overrode it, and a judge later blocked it.

Teuscher mentioned his bill and Birkeland’s have been combined for the reason that they dealt with the very same sections of Utah law. He added that the objective of HB463 was to clean up holes left by HB11, which designed a commission that would ascertain if a transgender girl could compete in a boy’s sport. Aspect of that bill’s language integrated a clause that conditioned “student athlete participation in gender-designated sports in the public education technique on the student’s birth certificate.”

But following HB11 initially passed, it was found that not all schools collected birth certificates from students, Teuscher mentioned. So if there is a college that does not demand a birth certificate, there would theoretically be no way for the commission course of action to kick in if a transgender girl wanted to compete in a boys’ sport at that college, Teuscher mentioned. So HB463 was a way to demand all schools to gather birth certificates as a way to make confident there was a way to spark the commission course of action, he mentioned.

Birkeland did not promptly respond to a request for comment.

Due to HB463′s slow move by means of the legislative course of action, tacking it onto HB209 helped smooth out the legislative course of action, Teuscher mentioned.

“This occurs from time to time exactly where you have a bill, somebody else has a bill, they deal with the very same section of code,” Teuscher mentioned. “They may possibly not be performing the precise very same point. But just for legislative efficiencies, points are moving along, and to retain points moving along and not bog down the course of action, we’ll come collectively and say, ‘Hey, let’s just combine our bills, amend in your component of the bill into my component. And that is what we did in this case.”