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FILE - In this Jan. 4, 2016 photo, a U.S. Border Patrol agent drives near the U.S.-Mexico border fence in Santa Teresa, N.M. Can Donald Trump really make good on his promise to build a wall along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border to prevent illegal migration? Whats more, can he make Mexico pay for it? Sure, he can build it, but its not nearly as simple as he says.(Photo: Russell Contreras / Associated Press)

An executive order from President Donald Trump could change how state and local governments enforce laws on illegal immigration.

Police departments and other local agencies across the country have been studying the order, titled Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States, and trying to determine what impacts it could have on their day-to-day operations.

So far, the order had not amounted to any actual changes in policy or practice in southern Utahs largest cities and towns, and officials said the order is too new to know exactly what its impacts might be.

The order called for the homeland security secretary to begin work on a border wall, for the creation of more detention centers, for an increase in the number of Border Patrol agents, and for the administration to withhold federal funding from cities that do not comply with immigration enforcement orders.

But it also orders the Department of Homeland Security to expand its interior immigration enforcement program and work with local and state police departments to allow local jurisdictions to enforce immigration laws and suggests local officers be allowed to perform the functions of an immigration officer in the interior of the United States to the maximum extent permitted by law.

We cannot faithfully execute the immigration laws of the United States if we exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement, according to the order.

The no-tolerance policy, combined with threats to withhold funding from sanctuary cities that dont enforce immigration laws as ordered, sets the stage for conflicts between the Trump administration and some of the countrys biggest cities.

Cities and counties with significant immigrant populations have long followed a policy of tolerating undocumented immigrants who dont break the law as a way to maintain good relationships and prevent other crimes.

In St. George, police have worked closely with immigration officials for years to turn over individuals charged with committing other crimes who dont have current immigration paperwork, city attorney Shawn Guzman said.

City Council member Ed Baca said he thought Trumps order was mostly just trying to put into place in some other cities measures St. George has been implementing for years.

I think were ahead of the curve, he said.

But the order includes language that could give police more powers than they have typically tried to employ, language that has raised the ire of civil liberties advocates and solicited worries about racial profiling and deteriorating relationships between law enforcement and immigrant communities.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors, which represents more than 1,400 cities across the country, issued a joint statement with the Major Cities Chiefs Association, a group representing 63 of the largest police departments in the country, suggesting they had strong reservations about the orders provisions on withholding federal funds and argued the order did not supply clear direction about what constitutes a sanctuary jurisdiction.

Representatives with other national groups were more supportive of the order, however, including the Fraternal Order of Police and the National Sheriffs Association.

Jonathan Thompson, executive director of the NSA, said the presidents pledge would add needed manpower to the ranks of the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, easing the dependence on local law enforcement.

Its key to remember that for too long sheriffs were the meat in the immigration enforcement sandwich, Thompson told the USA Today. No more. (Trump) is hiring 10,000 enforcement officers, which we have been calling for.

Follow David DeMille on Twitter, @SpectrumDeMille, and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/SpectrumDeMille. Call him at 435-674-6261.

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Local governments weigh Trump's illegal immigration order - St. George Daily Spectrum