'Syrian Refugees Welcome Here'

LAST FALL, MAYORS of 18 U.S. cities sent a letter to President Obama, promising to welcome Syrian refugees with open arms. Atop the list was Ed Pawlowski, the mayor of Allentown, Pennsylvania’s third largest city.

Pawlowski said his evangelical Christian faith—and America’s founding ideals—shaped his decision. “We like to say that America was built on Judeo-Christian principles,” he told Sojourners. “Then let’s follow our Judeo-Christian principles, which tell us to welcome the stranger because we were once strangers ourselves.” So far, about 10 Syrian refugee families have come to Allentown in the past year. More are expected.

There’s been some pushback from older Syrian immigrants in the community. Allentown is home to about 5,000 Syrians, many of them Christians who fled persecution in the past. Most of the new arrivals are Muslim.

Aziz Wehbey, head of the local American Amarian Syrian Charity Society, told CBS News he had concerns about the background checks on the new arrivals. “We need to know who we are welcoming in our society,” said Wehbey.

Another local Syrian charity, the Syrian Arab American Charity Association, has collected donations of food, furniture, and clothing for the refugees. So has St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church, where many Syrian immigrants worship.

Pawlowksi has spent a great deal of time talking to residents about their fears, such as concerns that the area will become “overrun” with refugees. He stressed that only a few families are coming to Allentown. They’ve lost everything, the mayor said, and need help: “We can handle this.”

IN A STATE where about 58,000 refugees have been resettled in recent decades, Nashville Mayor Megan Barry plans to continue welcoming newcomers, despite Gov. Bill Haslam petitioning the federal government to stop sending refugees to his state. The local World Relief office, which resettles 500 to 600 refugees each year, has organized churches to help Syrian refugees.

Saleh Sbenaty, who left Syria in the 1980s and now is a college professor and chair of the outreach committee at his local Islamic center, urged Tennesseans to continue to make refugees feel at home. “Yes, we need to ensure our country’s security first,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Nashville Scene, a local alterative newspaper. “But we also need to ease the suffering of these refugees. They are human beings, after all. None of them would stay here if they were given the chance to live in their own country without the fear of death, persecution, or torture.”

The status of refugees has caused tension in other states. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suit to block the arrival of three refugee families in early December. In Indiana, Gov. Mike Pence, who in the past has championed religious freedom, asked Catholic leaders to halt their refugee resettlement efforts. Pence made a personal appeal to the Catholic Archbishop of Indianapolis, Joseph W. Tobin. Tobin disagreed. A refugee family arrived in Indianapolis in early December. “I informed the governor prior to the family’s arrival that I had asked the staff of Catholic Charities to receive this husband, wife, and their two small children as planned,” Tobin said in a statement.

For his part, Pawlowski said he can’t change national policies about refugees. But he can make sure his city lives up to its principles. Those principles include a warm and compassionate welcome for refugees. “At the local level, we don’t have control over whether refugees show up,” he said. “Our responsibility is to say, we are going to welcome these folks ... For me and my city, we are going to try to live out what we believe.”