The link I posted only spoke about this particular FLDS compound.
Other than the fact that they have lived here for so long, I suspect they stay because America is famous for religious tolerance and takes it seriously. I do not, of course, think members of religious groups should escape prosecution when they break our laws, and I do not mind paying to prosecute those who break our laws.
But I love that our country is grounded, in part, by individual freedom to practice religion as one sees fit - even if some of those practices are unpopular or repugnant to the majority of us.
It is a balancing act though. So much of living in a free nation is a balancing act.
The rub, though, is that some of their religious practices do violate the law. Underage marriage is against the law here. Polygamy is against the law here. The authorities have often turned a blind eye to these practices but I do not think they should have in the past and certainly hope they do not do so in the future. Why shouldn't this closed FLDS society, so openly contemptuous of so much of America and Americans as a whole, find another place where basic tenets of their religion are not illegal and where the surrounding society is more to their liking? I too love the reality that freedom to practice religion is a hallmark of US society as well as other freedoms, but, based on what I've read and heard over the past several months, it does not appear to me that freedom is a hallmark of FLDS society, in fact quite the opposite.