Haya El Nasser/USA Today puts smiley face on illegal immigration in Utah

Haya El Nasser of USA Today offers "Immigrants turn Utah into mini-melting pot":

...Immigration is changing the complexion of communities across the USA. As it sweeps through Utah, traditionally one of the least diverse and most conservative states in the nation, its impact is particularly dramatic. About 98% white until 1970, Utah is becoming a mini-melting pot...

Let's leave aside issues of diversifying for the sake of diversity or issues of forced, manufactured, or involuntary diversification and concentrate instead on whether the article is telling the whole truth. Despite having hundreds of words and many facts and figures, it's a very superficial article that doesn't look at what might really be going on.

For instance:

[U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon] is far from liberal on [the issue of illegal immigration]. He voted for a bill that would make helping illegal immigrants a crime and illegal residency a felony. But he supports President Bush's proposed guest-worker program. Cannon and Jacob are Mormon.

That "fine American" has been featured in many posts here, and if you want to find out whether Haya El Nasser is credible or not, compare just some of those posts to what's offered in the article. Information on Cannon abounds on other sites, it's a bit curious that El Nasser couldn't find any of it. Google lessons perhaps? If that doesn't work, try this:

"The LDS faith believes you can be conservative and yet be compassionate," says Marco Diaz, past chairman of the Utah Republican Hispanic Assembly, which tries to attract more Hispanics to the party. "Help thy neighbor and love thy neighbor and still try to be fiscal conservatives."

As detailed at the link, back in 2004, Diaz said this while sitting next to Cannon and being interviewed on a Spanish-language radio show:

"If you are undocumented you must find, we welcome this money, but you have to find someone who is legal in order to donate money [to the Cannon campaign]."

Also, despite having all that space, he devotes none of it to Utah's governor Jon Huntsman and his interesting affiliations. The "Rest of the Story" indeed.