Opposition To Refugee Arrivals Keeps Getting Louder
Critics of the U.S. refugee program say they want more control over who's coming to live in their towns. In Poughkeepsie, N.Y., the debate got ugly.
by Joel Rose
Nov 22, 2017
4 minutes
A few days after Donald Trump was elected President, more than a hundred people packed into a church sanctuary in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. to hear a presentation about refugee resettlement in their town.
It didn't go well.
This was after Trump had campaigned on refusing Syrian refugees, citing security concerns. In the church that night, staffers from the non-profit organization Church World Service laid out their plan to open a refugee resettlement office in Poughkeepsie, and bring in about 80 refugees, mostly from the Congo, Iraq and Syria.
The audience had questions. A lot of them. They wanted to know, would they
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