Workers camped in tents on the sidewalk outside Fillerup Employment Services in Sandy, waiting for construction jobs while migrant shelters were full.

General manager Gonzalo Rodriguez described the scene to the Associated Press as part of a sweeping analysis published Thursday, Sept. 17, which found Utah became a top destination for Venezuelans crossing the U.S.-Mexico border between fall 2018 and summer 2025. About 30,000 of the 1 million Venezuelans released into the country said they were heading to Utah.

Sandy and the surrounding southern suburbs sit at the center of that growth.

Rodriguez, 39, rose from laborer to general manager at Fillerup, a construction company with an office park in Sandy. He told the AP the firm had about 25 Venezuelans in its workforce of roughly 300 when he arrived in 2020. By 2022, that number reached 165. Julio Gonzalez, 33, followed a similar path. He crossed the border in 2021 with his wife and son, then 9, and climbed from laborer to human resources manager at the same company.

Hector Escalona, 42, also started in construction at Fillerup before opening a barber shop in 2022. He now operates three shops with 27 chairs, and many of his employees are Venezuelan. Escalona told the AP he is expanding his business even as his own asylum case remains unresolved.

The growth extends statewide. Venezuelans now rank as the second-largest Latino subgroup in Utah after Mexicans, with the population reaching 23,134 in 2024, a 186% increase from 2019, according to American Community Survey estimates reported by KSL.

But legal protections are thinning. Temporary Protected Status, known as TPS, ended in 2025 for most Venezuelan beneficiaries, KUER reported. Only 6% of asylum cases in Utah's immigration court were approved in fiscal year 2026, according to the Mobile Pathways tracking site cited by KUER.

Arrivals peaked in 2023, the AP reported. About 500,000 Venezuelans now have pending cases in U.S. immigration court, more than any other nationality.