Donald Trump won the biggest Republican landslide since the 1980s on one issue: stopping unchecked immigration.
Now a Republican mayor has issued an official government proclamation celebrating it.
What she declared – and whose holiday she used to do it – has conservatives demanding she go.
Provo Mayor Marsha Judkins Issues Pioneer Day Proclamation for African Refugees
Every July 24, Utah observes Pioneer Day – marking the moment in 1847 when Brigham Young led Latter-day Saint settlers out of the wilderness and into the Salt Lake Valley.
Those settlers did not have housing vouchers, federal refugee programs, or Instagram accounts celebrating their arrival.
Provo Republican Mayor Marsha Judkins issued an official mayoral proclamation this year redirecting the holiday toward African refugees resettled in Provo through the federal refugee program.
The city's social media accounts shared a video featuring several of those refugees.
Judkins wrote that Pioneer Day honors those who "journeyed west in search of religious freedom and the opportunity to build a better future free from persecution" – then declared that African refugees "embody that same pioneer spirit, leaving behind familiar homes to begin new lives in a place they had never seen before."
She added, citing former Governor Gary Herbert: "Pioneer Day is our opportunity to say plainly what we know to be true: the men and women rebuilding their lives in our communities are modern-day pioneers."
The backlash was immediate.
"Disgraceful conduct by Marsha Judkins and Provo City," wrote one critic on X. "Talk about erasing history. This is a total rejection and re-write of what Pioneer Day even is."
Another responded with one word: "Enraging."
Marsha Judkins Voted to Declare Racism a Public Health Crisis
Judkins is registered Republican – but her legislative record tells a different story.
During her time in the Utah House of Representatives, she previously voted to declare racism a moral and public health crisis.
She defeated an incumbent Republican to win the mayor's office in 2025 and took office in January 2026.
Her official biography describes a focus on "transparent governance, fiscal responsibility, and responsive city services."
What it leaves out: a willingness to use a sacred state holiday as a platform for open-borders virtue signaling.
The America First movement spent years warning that establishment Republicans were as dangerous as Democrats when it came to protecting American history.
Judkins just proved the point.
RINO Republicans and the Open-Borders Agenda in Conservative States
Utah voted for Donald Trump by double digits in 2024.
Provo sits in Utah County – one of the most conservative counties in the country.
The globalist establishment did not disappear when Trump won.
It retreated into city halls, school boards, and state legislatures – and it is still running the same play it always has.
Find an existing tradition that communities love, attach a radical leftist message to it, and dare anyone to object without looking heartless.
Judkins ran that play in one of the reddest cities in America.
She wrapped open-borders politics in the language of religious sacrifice and frontier courage – and posted a feel-good Instagram video so anyone who pushed back would look like they were arguing against refugees serving in the U.S. military.
That is not compassion – that is a political strategy wearing a sympathy costume.
Mormon Pioneers vs African Refugees and What Judkins Got Wrong
Compassion does not require erasing the people who built the state.
The Mormon pioneers who settled Utah endured frostbite, starvation, and death – not because a federal agency relocated them, but because they chose to cross a continent for the right to practice their faith.
Comparing that sacrifice to resettlement through a government program is not generosity.
That comparison is what happens when a RINO mayor cares more about appearing enlightened on Instagram than honoring the people who made her city possible.
Marsha Judkins represents the globalist establishment that never left – it just moved into city hall and started issuing proclamations.
Sources:
- Staff, "GOP Mayor in Utah Calls African Refugees the American West's 'New Pioneers,'" Breitbart, July 26, 2026.