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Stephanie Hirsch remembers rising up within the western Wisconsin metropolis of Eau Claire when the neighborhood welcomed newly arriving Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia.
So Hirsch, now the Eau Claire metropolis supervisor, stated she was stunned on the hostility, worry and anger she noticed final fall, when residents realized a number of dozen refugees would begin arriving legally locally of about 70,000. Opponents unfold misinformation — together with on a billboard — about how many individuals had been coming and from the place, and folks packed a metropolis assembly to protest the resettlements.
“It’s very laborious for me to grasp that worry,” Hirsch stated. “I fully disagree with being afraid of individuals from completely different cultures. In reality, I’m actually enthusiastic about it.”
However the way in which lifelong Eau Claire resident Fred Kappus noticed it, town ought to produce other priorities.
“We actually ought to attend to the homelessness state of affairs earlier than we herald individuals from elsewhere,” stated Kappus, the vice chairman of the Eau Claire Republican Get together.
The flaring pressure over the resettlement of refugees in Eau Claire has been repeated in lots of different midsize communities throughout the U.S., and it served as a backdrop to a marketing campaign rally Tuesday with Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance, who has targeted on immigration and anti-immigrant rhetoric as he and former President Donald Trump marketing campaign.
Vance argued Tuesday that unlawful immigration has devastated elements of the nation, together with locations like Wisconsin which are removed from the U.S. border with Mexico. He blames Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden for issues such because the circulate of unlawful medicine and says he and Trump will safe the border and “put Individuals first.”
“Each neighborhood is a border state,” Vance stated. “Each neighborhood is a border neighborhood.”
The Ohio senator additionally has continued to promote false claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are abducting and consuming pets as he tries to attract consideration to Democratic presidential nominee Harris’ immigration insurance policies. Officers have stated there have been no credible or detailed experiences concerning the claims.
Vance defended speaking concerning the claims in Springfield when requested about it Tuesday.
“I haven’t made up something,” Vance stated. “I simply listened to individuals who had been telling me issues.”
Vance stated he desires to journey to Springfield and converse with individuals there, however that wouldn’t be within the metropolis’s finest pursuits proper now.
Struggle for a ‘blue wall’ state
Western Wisconsin is a goal for each side in one of many “blue wall” states, together with Pennsylvania and neighboring Michigan, that each events say they should win to safe the White Home. Vance campaigned in Michigan earlier Tuesday earlier than going to Wisconsin.
The town of Eau Claire — a regional financial hub about 90 miles east of Minneapolis — is reliably Democratic. However it’s positioned in a county the place margins of victory could make a distinction in November. Biden carried the county by 11 factors over Trump in 2020, when the Democrat gained Wisconsin and the election. Trump misplaced the county by 7 factors in 2016, however gained Wisconsin that 12 months.
Vance didn’t point out the resettlement in Eau Claire throughout his rally, however did speak about Trump’s plan to deport individuals residing within the nation illegally, drawing loud cheers from the gang. He additionally stated communities which are “overrun” by immigration have seen issues equivalent to rising rents, elevated automotive insurance coverage prices and added stress on well being care and college methods.
The difficulty of immigration already has polarized individuals in Eau Claire and the encompassing space.
When information broke almost a 12 months in the past that about 75 refugees who fled their nations because of battle or persecution had been headed to the area — representing about 0.10% of Eau Claire’s inhabitants — Republicans launched payments on the state and federal degree designed to present native communities extra say.
A deceptive billboard accused Eau Claire metropolis leaders of utilizing tax {dollars} to “visitors Somali refugees” and holding the plan secret, although nobody from Somalia was a part of the resettlement effort. An overflow crowd at an Eau Claire County Board assembly opposed the resettlement, however the board rejected a decision that might have paused the hassle.
There was additionally initially a “whole and full lack of transparency” associated to the resettlements and the place the refugees had been coming from, stated Kappus, the Republican critic.
Hirsch, town’s high official, says officers don’t want to carry a public listening to anytime somebody strikes into city.
“Now we have many hundreds of people that transfer to Eau Claire on an annual foundation,” she stated. “There’s nothing uncommon about having individuals transfer to Eau Claire.”
World Reduction, a humanitarian assist group based by the Nationwide Affiliation of Evangelicals, settled 77 refugees in Eau Claire since February, about half from the African nations of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo and Central African Republic and others from Venezuela and Colombia, stated Matthew Soerens, vice chairman of advocacy and coverage. 5 Somalis stay within the close by neighborhood of Barron, the place members of the family had beforehand settled.
World Reduction expects 100 to 125 extra refugees in Eau Claire within the federal authorities’s funds 12 months, beginning Oct. 1, to reach at about the identical tempo for the reason that group started operations within the Wisconsin metropolis in February.
Invoice Berg, 73, who was born and raised in Eau Claire and lived most of his life there, stated, “It’s a minority that disagrees with refugee resettlement.”
“It’s ‘the opposite,’” he stated Tuesday when requested why he thought some had been opposed. “It’s all the time ‘the opposite.’”
He described Eau Claire as a “welcoming neighborhood” and stated he had no drawback with the refugees.
“Half of my household are of different races, which I believe is an efficient factor,” he stated.
Refugee resettlement cap elevated below Biden
World Reduction, one in every of 10 nongovernmental organizations that works with the State Division and the U.N. refugee company to carry refugees to the US after in depth vetting, has been increasing after leaner occasions. Biden raised the cap on bringing refugees to 125,000 within the funds 12 months ending Sept. 30 from 18,000 below Trump in 2020, the bottom since refugee resettlement started in 1980.
Simply over 84,000 refugees got here to the US from Oct. 1 via Aug. 31, a tempo that falls in need of the 125,000 cap. Wisconsin took in 1,500 of them, about one-third from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is tormented by violent crime and civil unrest.
Eau Claire is one in every of a number of places, together with Austin, Texas; Baltimore; and Scott County, Iowa, the place World Reduction grew over the past 12 months, Soerens stated. The group felt it succeeded in Appleton, Wisconsin — the place it had settled refugees for greater than a decade — and began in search of one other Wisconsin metropolis that provided jobs and a welcoming spirit. They spoke with police departments, faculty districts, potential employers and church buildings.
“The neighborhood that kind of rose to the highest was Eau Claire, partially as a result of the native authorities was keen,” Soerens stated.
Hirsch was so assured that Eau Claire can be a superb match, she wrote the U.S. State Division final 12 months that the county had an unemployment price of three.5%, with loads of job alternatives and “an extended historical past of welcoming refugees.”
However then the backlash hit.
Kappus, who lived his whole life in Eau Claire, thinks immigration is likely one of the high issues of voters in western Wisconsin.
“Fentanyl is an issue right here in west-central Wisconsin and Eau Claire,” Kappus stated. “All of it goes again to our open borders.”
World Reduction, like different resettlement companies, supplies non permanent assist which will embrace meals, lease, clothes, furnishings and assist with faculty enrollment and job searches. That’s far completely different from Springfield, Ohio, the place many Haitians are within the nation below Short-term Protected Standing, which spares individuals from being deported to nations which are thought of unsafe because of pure disasters or civil strife. Refugees, in contrast to these on TPS, have a path to citizenship.
Eau Claire, the fastest-growing metropolis within the northern half of Wisconsin, is attracting individuals from throughout, together with small cities and massive cities, individuals escaping hotter climates and people from different nations, Hirsch stated.
“We’re blissful to have individuals come to the neighborhood whether or not they’re refugees from the Congo or a candidate for vice chairman,” she stated. “We need to be a neighborhood that’s welcoming.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our e-newsletter to get our investigative tales and Friday information roundup. This story is printed in partnership with The Related Press.
