The Wall.St Journal 21Feb2020

THE WALL STREETJOURNAL. **** Friday, February21, 2020|A 3

U.S.NEWS

Utah could decriminalize

polygamy for the first timein

85 years.

Lawmakers in the state

House are considering legisla-

tion that would reclassify big-

amyas an infraction in certain

circumstances. The Republi-

can-controlled Senate unani-

mouslypassed the bill earlier

this week.

More than60% of Utah’s

population belongs to the

Churchof JesusChristofLat-

ter-day Saints, colloquially

known as the Mormon Church,

which practiced polygamy

early in its history but banned

it more than a century ago.

Under current state law,

bigamy is a felony, punishable

byup to fiveyears in prison.

Bigamy is a legal term, defined

as marrying someone while

being legally married to an-

other person.

Sen. Deidre Henderson, a

Republican from Spanish Fork

who sponsored the bill,said

the legislation wouldn’t legal-

ize polygamy. The practice

would still beclassified asa

felonyif a person marries un-

der false pretenses,if coercion

isinvolved,orifanindividual

is also convicted of child abuse,

sexual battery, kidnapping and

other crimes,she said.

The broader purpose,Sen.

Hendersonsaidon the Senate

floor, is “to give some cer-

tainty to otherwise law-abid-

ing consenting adults who

practice polygamy while also

allowing for enhanced penal-

ties forthose whocommit

other seriouscrimes.”

Sen. Henderson has argued

the bill would encourage abuse

victimsorthoseinforced mar-

riagesin polygamous commu-

nities to report crimes to law

enforcement without fearof

being penalized for the crime

ofbigamy. Under the legisla-

tion, polygamy would be akin

to a traffic violation, and

wouldn’tincludejailtime.

Utah Attorney General Sean

Reyes has saidhis office only

prosecutes bigamy crimes

“against those who induce

marriage under false pretenses

or if there is acollateral mal-

feasance.”

Sen. Henderson has said her

bill would essentially codify

the attorney general’s prevail-

ing practices into law.

Sound Choices Coalition,an

antipolygamist group, says de-

criminalizing the practice

would lead to greater human-

rights abuses and that there is

no evidenceit would encourage

victimsinthosecommunities

to seek help. “Victims of polyg-

amydon’t report abuse, not

because it’s criminal, they

don’t reportit because they are

terrified fortheirlife and sal-

vation,” the group said.

Polygamy was outlawedin

the U.S.in the 1880s. The prac-

tice was banned bythe Mor-

mon Churchin 1890,as Utah

soughtstatehood.

Since then,the state and the

MormonChurchhavetakena

hard stance against polygamy,

with the latter excommunicat-

ingits members for engaging

in plural marriage.

In 1935,the state criminal-

ized bigamy. Those moves

pushed polygamiststothe

fringes of society andingeo-

graphicisolation.

The law has been challenged

over theyears. In 2013, U.S.

District Judge Clark Waddoups

declared unconstitutional a key

portion of Utah’s polygamy law

afterit was challenged by stars

of the reality-television show

“Sister Wives.” An appeals

court later dismissed that deci-

sion and the Supreme Court

decided not to hear the appeal.

According to a Gallup poll,

acceptance of polygamy ap-

pears to beincreasinginthe

U.S. In 2018,18% of Americans

believed marrying more than

one person was morallyaccept-

able. In 2003, 7% of those

asked took the same stance.

BYTALALANSARI

UtahLooks

At Change

In Law for

Polygamy

StateSen. Deidre Henderson

RICK BOWMER

/ASSOCIATED PRES

S

“My eyes are open right now

that water levels maycontinue

to swing like that,” he said, but

the question needs more study

to make better predictions

about what might happen next.

Lauren Fry, a hydrology ex-

pert with the Army Corps’ De-

troitDistrict,said that while

all but LakeOntarioare ex-

pected to set records at some

point between now and mid-

summer, the situation might

be most acuteon lakes Michi-

gan and Huron. The two lakes

arepredicted to break their

water-levelrecordsby4to 7

inches eachmonth between

now and July.

“If we have wettercondi-

tions,it could be more. If we

have drier conditions,it could

be less,” Ms. Frysaid.

Jeff Yoakam, an emergency-

management specialist with

the Army Corps’ DetroitDis-

trict,said his office has been

providing technical expertise

to 12 counties in Michigan and

six in Wisconsin,and he ex-

pects more to request help.

Earlier this month,his team

had a conference call with rep-

resentatives from Duluth,

Minn.,where officials estimate

it will take$30 million to fix

damage to the shoreline, a

boardwalk and otherpublicin-

frastructure along the edge of

Lake Superior.

“We’re busy designing re-

pairs for a whole bunch of

shoreline,”saidMike LeBeau,

the construction project super-

visor in Duluth’s Project Man-

agement Office. The city has

already begun bringing in

76,000 tons of large stones

that it will use toprotect the

shoreline atCanal Park.

In Illinois,officials estimate

$25 million in damage to

trails,beaches and other prop-

erty along Lake Michigan in

Chicago, and a further$12 mil-

lion in damage elsewhere in

Cook County.

InWisconsin, preliminary

tallies of damage to public in-

frastructure sit at$30 million

across three shorelinecoun-

ties. Port Milwaukee sustained

$1.4 million in damage alone.

Governors in both states have

issued disaster declarations

that could trigger federal help.

Owners of endangered

homes in Wisconsin aren’t

waiting to act. In lakeside

communities such as Pleasant

Prairie,Somers and Racine,

many have calledin outfits

like Vassh Excavating & Grad-

ing Inc. to build sea walls, jet-

ties and other barriers against

erosion.

Randy Vassh, who owns the

company, said he has enough

projects that he is looking to

buy extra equipment so he and

his daughter, Sarah, can take

on more. “I’mjust getting call

after call after call,”hesaid.

In some areas of Michigan,

the erosionissobad that

homeowners are paying to

have their homes relocated,

and Michigan’s Department of

Environment,Great Lakes and

Energyis working to expedite

the necessary permits to

homeowners. Itissued 4 68

permits for shoreline protec-

tion in the first three months

ofits 2020 fiscal year, which

began Oct. 1, compared with

557 permits for shorelinepro-

tectionin all of the previous

fiscal year.

“We made the determina-

tion that the department

wasn’t going to be the reason

that people lost their homes,”

said Jerrod Sanders,an assis-

tant division director with

the department. “This is a

critical situation.”

Phil Jonassen,a freelance

house mover,last week walked

several of theproperties in

Oceana County, Mich., where

he has relocationjobs under

way.Atone,hehadlifted a

beige home high off the

ground and back from the

eroding shoreline, where a

road had washed away and left

a neighbor’s driveway dan-

gling off a cliff.

Onadifferent lot where he

had begun to lift a house for

relocation, he stood at the

edge of another eroded cliff,

pointing to a spot where his

grandfather’s cottage used to

stand before the landitwason

washed awayinaperiod of

high waterin the mid-1980s.

“The same thingis happen-

ing right here, right now,” he

said. “Everybodyon the lake

shore, they’rein a bad spot.”

PLEASANT PRAIRIE,Wis.—

It took less than eight hours

for wind-whipped waves surg-

ing off a record-high Lake

Michiganin a recent storm to

shortenCharlotte and Rudolf

Brengel’s backyard by 40 feet.

The erosion transformed

what was a grassy slope to the

shorelineintoacliff witha12-

foot drop, taking out a lakeside

deck and stopping about 1 0

feet short of the Brengels’ sep-

tic pipes. Their neighbor fared

worse. Water battered the

backof that home and washed

away the yard. “If there’s an-

other big storm, we’re going to

be finished,” Ms. Brengel said

as she walked what was leftof

her yard this month. “If we

lose our septic, we might as

well fold.”

Record and near-record wa-

ter levels in all five Great

Lakes are resulting in tens of

millions of dollarsin damage

fromMinnesota toNew York

as eroding shorelines and

monster wavescause homes to

plummet into the water,public

piers and lakeside trails to

crackandcrumble,andparks

andproperties to flood.

The high levels come after

several years of above-average

rains and snowfallin the re-

gion. Last year was the wettest

onrecord for the Great Lakes

andthesecondwettest across

the continental U.S., according

tofederal data. Forecasts from

the U.S. Army Corps of Engi-

neers showtheelevatedlake

levels persisting through at

least July.

Lakes Huron and Michigan

set record lowsin early 2013 —

an unprecedented swing, said

Drew Gronewold,an associate

professor at the Universityof

Michigan’s School for Environ-

ment and Sustainability.He

said the warming climateisex-

acerbating both precipitation

and evaporation,the two main

forces affecting lake levels.

BYERINAILWORTH

Rising Great Lakes Pose Peril

Some homeowners

are movingaway from

the water;millions in

damage across region

The shoreline near village ofShelby, Mich., on Lake Michigan is eroded by high water levels, which come after several years ofabove-average rains and snowfall.

ERIN AILWORTH

/THE WALL STREET JOURNA

L

Source: U.S. ArmyCorpsofEngineers

How erosion occurs

How shorelines are protected:

Seawalls:Designed to protect

the shoreline by sending some

of the energyof the waves

back into the lake.

Bulkheads:Vertical concrete

walls whose primary purpose

is to retain soil, and also to

protect against waves.

Revetments:Erosion-resistant

material is placed on a filter

cloth on the existing slope.

The end is capped to stabilize

the layers. Revetments are the

most-used option in the Great

Lakes and easiest to build.

Lake Michigan is up to 118 miles wideand can generate waves

10 to 20 feet tall during storms. In addition, the water level

might vary depending on which direction storms are moving.

Weakened by the waves,

sections of the lake coast

erode and eventually collapse.

Dylan Moriarty/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Sto

rmwinds

cally highest.

Acting Homeland Security

Secretary Chad Wolf “has

made no decisionyet on the

issue,” a DHS spokesperson

said. “Anynumbers reported

onatthistime are being

pushed to press byjunior staff

who are not privyto all of the

discussions taking place.”

The seasonal worker pro-

gram, known as the H-2B visa

program, enables U.S. employ-

ers to hire as manyas 66,00 0

foreign workers per year, with

the allotments split evenlybe-

tween the winter and summer

seasons. Congress permits the

Department of Homeland Se-

curityeachyear to raise that

cap byas manyas 64,000 ad-

ditional visas.

In Mr. Trump’s first two

yearsin office, DHS raised the

cap by15,000 visas to 81,000,

and lastyearitraised the cap

by30,000 to 96,000.

The additional visas will

primarilybe available to work-

erswhohavepreviouslyquali-

fied forH-2Bvisas because the

administration has moreconfi-

dence that theywill leave the

country once theirjob assign-

ments end.

Demand has routinelyout-

stripped the available cap.

Landscapers, fisheries, county

fairs and holidayresorts—in-

cluding President Trump’s

own golf and beach clubs—all

use the H-2B program to fill

lower-skilledjobs.

Lastyear, the administra-

tion received 100,000 applica-

tions for the summer season

on Jan. 1—three times the

numberofvisas then available.

The businesses that use the

seasonal-worker visas have bi-

partisan boostersin Congress.

Last month189 Democrats and

Republicans signed a letter

asking Mr. Wolf to raise the

seasonalworker capbythe

full amount available, to

130,000 thisyear.

“Without immediate and

meaningfulH-2Bcaprelief,

seasonal businesses will be

forced to scale back opera-

tions, cancel or default on

contracts, layoff full-time U.S.

workers and,in some cases,

close operations completely,”

the letter said.

The movecomes amida

continuing debate inside the

Trump administration over

how to approach legalimmi-

gration, with some officials ar-

guing American workers will

see wages rise onlyif foreign

workers are prevented from

undercutting them, while oth-

ers believe moreimmigrants

are needed tosustain the eco-

nomic growth that Mr. Trump

will put at the center of hisre-

election campaign.

Guest workers, like few

otherissuesinimmigration,

muddle traditionalideologi-

cal lines, where business-

minded Republicans and pro-

immigrant Democrats find

themselves atodds with la-

bor unions andimmigration

hard-liners.

RJ Hauman, government-

relations director at the Fed-

erationfor American Immi-

gration Reform, a group that

favors limiting legalimmigra-

tion,saidif the administra-

tion follows through with the

increase,it would be violat-

ing Mr. Trump’s campaign

promise to protect American

workers.

“If President Trump wants

asecond term,he needs to

keep blue-collarjobs growing

at the fastest rateinyears by

refusing to giveimmigration-

related handouts to employ-

ers,”hesaid.

White House officialsin-

cluding Stephen Miller, the

president’s top immigration

adviser, have pushed through

numerous policy changes that

would shrink most formsof le-

galimmigration. The most sig-

nificant of those policies,the

public-charge rule, which will

essentiallyimpose anincome

test on future green-card ap-

plicants,will take effect Mon-

day.

WASHINGTON—The Trump

administration plans to allow

45 ,000 additional seasonal

guest workers to return to the

U.S. this summer, the highest

number since the president

took office, according to three

administrationofficials.

The Department of Home-

land Security plans to an-

nounce the additional sea-

sonal-worker visas next week,

an administrationofficial said.

Theywill become availablein

two waves: the first 20, 000

will beimmediatelyavailable,

while employers can applyfor

the remainder forjobs begin-

ning June 1.

It wasn’tclear whether the

White House has fully signed

off on the numbers,and an ad-

ministrationofficialcautioned

they could change.

The additional visas are

being made available ahead of

the summer,when demand

for short-term workistypi-

BYMICHELLEHACKMAN

U.S. Plans to Raise Seasonal-Worker Cap