Two lose jobs over Utah list

One Utah state employee was fired and another will be dismissed following an investigation of how a list of 1,300 purportedly illegal immigrants was compiled and made public, officials said Tuesday.

The Utah Department of Workforce Services announced the termination of one temporary employee who maintained a database containing information found on the list, and said a second employee would be fired soon.

Officials said last week that the two had been placed on administrative leave.

“We carefully protect the personal information that we gather and take very seriously breaches of that public trust,” Workforce Services Director Kristen Cox said Tuesday.

The agency has been conducting an internal investigation to determine how birth dates, Social Security numbers, pregnancy due dates, home addresses and other personal data were assembled into a 29-page document and released.

The list was disseminated to law enforcement agencies, news media outlets and state lawmakers by a group calling itself Concerned Citizens of the United States, with the demand that those named be deported.

The disclosure triggered outrage in Utah’s steadily growing Latino community, just days after the Obama administration sued neighboring Arizona over that state’s new immigration law.