North Dakota's Burleigh County could become the first in the U.S. to ban new refugees since President Trump signed an executive order making it possible.
Reuben Panchol is shown Friday, Dec. 6, 2019 at the North Dakota state capitol in Bismarck. Panchol, who immigrated from Sudan to North Dakota as a child, says he hopes to tell his personal story at a meeting Monday, Dec. 9 at which the Burleigh County Commission may vote against accepting any new refugees. It's believed the county would be the first to do so since President Donald Trump's executive order earlier this fall gave states and counties the ability to do so.
Panchol hopes to share his story on Monday with members of a local commission who are set to vote on whether their county will stop accepting refugees. If they vote to bar refugees, as expected, Burleigh County — home to about 95,000 people and the capital city of Bismarck — could become the first local government to do so since President Donald TrumpThe county postponed a vote last week when more than 100 people showed up and overflowed the commission’s normal meeting space.
Trump’s executive order this fall came as he had already proposed cutting the number of refugees next year to the lowest level since Congress passed the Refugee Act of 1980. He declared that refugees should be resettled only in places where the state and local governments — counties — gave consent. Since then, many governors and counties around the country have declared that they would continue taking refugees.
“Right now it’s a blank check and that equates into a lot of questions,” Bakken said of the number of refugees that could be placed in the area. “We have burgeoning school enrollment, veterans’ needs, homeless needs, and Native American needs.Shirley Dykshoorn, a vice president for Lutheran Social Services, which handles all ofcases, said her agency used to handle about 400 cases per year, but that number dropped to 124 in fiscal 2019, which ended in September.
Burgum, who has said he’ll seek a second term, acknowledged that Burleigh County’s vote could be seen as unwelcoming in a state that has about 30,000 more jobs than takers.The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which works with Lutheran Social Services, is one of three national organizationsto block Trump’s executive order.
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