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On March 23, 2025 Mial Love died. Love was a descendant of Haitian immigrants who converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, moved to Utah. started a family. In 2008 she successfully ran to be a member of the Saratoga Springs City Council and the first person of African American descent to win an election in Utah County. She later became Mayor of Saratoga Springs and then, in 2012, become the first African American Republican women to be elected to Congress.
My personal interactions with MIa Love are fairly limited. During Donald Trump's first term in office she was one of the few Republicans in Congress who were willing to publicly support legislation that would have provided a path to legal residency for undocumented immigrants who first came to the United States as children, also know as "Dreamers". During this time I helped to organize meetings with Love's congressional staff and ,members of the coalition that is now called FACE Hunger and Homelessness. The purpose of these meetings was to thank Love for spending political capital to support young people who had lived most of their lives in the United States and ask if there were ways we could support her efforts to promote good legislation.
In one of the meetings with staff someone mentioned that my son, Oliver, had recently died after a long battle with leukemia. Her staff person expressed sympathy and then the conversation was redirected to discussing immigrations policy. A day or two later I was surprised when this staff person told me that Love had expressed an interest in talking to me personally. When she called we did not talk about policy at all. Instead she told me that she had read Oliver's obituary and that he sounded like a remarkable person. She listened while I told her stories about Oliver and then told me a bit about her own children. When we finished talking she asked for my wife's phone number and then called her and talked for much longer than she had talked to me.
I do not claim to have any kind of deep insight into Love's character because of those two phone calls. What I do know is that she was a sitting member of Congress and a mother with children at home and so she really did not have time to call either me or my wife that day. She had an impulse to reach out and be kind to strangers and she acted on it despite all the other demands for her time and attention. I am not always as good at acting on those kinds of impulses but it was a blessing at that moment in my life that someone else was willing and able to model that type of kindness.
Love's funeral will take place one week from today, on April 7, and so a lot of important and powerful people are paying tribute to her and her legacy. Last week Congress honored her with a moment of silence. On Sunday her body will lie in state in the Rotunda at the Utah Capitol Building.
One way people who represent Utah in Congress could honor Love's legacy in a deeply meaningful way with ongoing effects would be to pass legislation implementing the kinds of moderate, bipartisan, immigration reforms that Love championed while she was in Congress. It should be possible to reach a bipartisan agreement on some positive immigration changes. Earlier this year President Trump said, "“We have to do something about the Dreamers because these are people that have been brought here at a very young age. And many of these are middle-aged people now. They don’t even speak the language of their country,”
I personally want to challenge the people who represent Utah in the United States Senate and House of Representatives to honor Love's courage and kindness by publicly announcing their intent to work on immigration legislation that protects Dreamers and refugees from places like Haiti, where Love's parents were born. Perhaps the bill enacting these positive changes could even include her name. In 2018, after meeting with President Trump, Mia Love stated, "The goal of any immigration reform should reflect our commitment to family, national defense, community and compassion. Tonight, I received assurance from the President about his support for a permanent fix for DACA recipients."
A permanent fix for Dreamers was not passed in 2018. Hopefully Congress will pass one in 2025.
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