The underutilized role of immigrant-serving community organizations in addressing environmental injustice: a qualitative study in Utah

Utah’s Wasatch Front is a growing metropolitan area facing looming environmental challenges, including poor air quality that is exacerbated by the rapid desiccation of Great Salt Lake. Immigrant populations are disproportionately exposed to air pollution in the region, a result of structural forces that lead to environmental injustice. We examine the role of immigrant-serving community organizations in mitigating these disproportionate risks. Via semi-structured interviews with organizational staff, we identify how organizations: 1) perceive key environmental risks affecting immigrants; 2) frame their role in mitigating environmental injustice; and 3) describe barriers to developing environmental resources and programming. We find that while organization staff are largely aware of the disproportionate environmental risks affecting immigrants, most organizations are not actively mitigating these risks. Financial and staffing limitations, lack of expertise, and the socio-political marginalization experienced by immigrants pose barriers to environmental initiatives. Furthermore, we find ideological barriers among some staff who perceive environmental issues as irrelevant to immigrants and therefore outside their organizational purview. Given that community-based organizations are sometimes the only institutions interfacing with immigrants, our research suggests that their potential to address environmental injustice is substantially under-utilized.