There's a place where refugees have been flocking for centuries.
In the middle of rural Pennsylvania, surrounded by farmland,
this county takes in more refugees per capita than almost anywhere in the country.
And they don't want Donald Trump to stop them from taking in more.
TRUMP: "We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country"
"and love, deeply, our people."
"It's from one of my neighbors, I think. He says,"
"'Hi Mustafa. My heart is breaking for what's going on in my government and my country.'"
"'Know that you have me as a friend always.' That's one of the things."
Mustafa O. Nurr is a Muslim refugee from Somalia.
His father was murdered in front of his family during the civil war.
He's now a web designer in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
"'Hey Mustafa, I feel very sad with what's going on today. Is there any way we can help?'"
"So that's one person."
"Another person says, 'I do hope you feel supported here in Lancaster.'"
"'We love having you and other refugees in our community as neighbors.'"
Lancaster County resettled one refugee for every 327 residents between 2013 and 2015.
That's about 20 times the national average.
Lancaster has affordable housing, low poverty,
and blue collar jobs that refugees can do even if they don't speak English.
But the main reason it takes so many refugees is because the locals are welcoming.
When the mayor of Lancaster heard that Trump's new decree would prevent more people like
Mustafa from joining his community, he wasn't exactly happy.
"I'm Irish, so I have a temper."
"So I lost my temper and wrote something, and then I cooled down, and we rewrote it."
The result was a strongly-worded public letter, vowing to protect residents
"regardless of immigration or refugee status"
and calling Trump's executive order "an unnecessary distraction from that focus."
MAYOR GRAY: "They keep on asking me, 'Are we a sanctuary city?'"
"Did you ever see The Hunchback of Notre Dame, that movie?"
"All I can think of is Charles Laughton in Notre Dame Cathedral screaming 'Sanctuary!'"
LAUGHTON: "Sanctuary! Sanctuary!"
"I'm not really sure what that means. I know what we do. This is what we do."
"If that's a sanctuary city, then we are. If it isn't, then we aren't."
"But this is what we do, this is what we have done, and this is what we intend to do."
Mayor Gray doesn't find this attitude radical.
He finds it quite traditional.
"Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn"
"who was suffering religious persecution because he was a Quaker."
PENN: "How far can they go? What's happening? Doesn't Parliament realize how we feel?"
MAYOR GRAY: "He came and established a colony that had as one of its basic premises"
"that you could practice whatever religion you wanted to."
PENN: "Think of it! A colony of our own."
"A fresh new land where we or anyone else could build and practice religion as we choose."
"Why, there's no end to the dream. Religious freedoms beget all freedoms."
MAYOR GRAY: "There'd be no religious test in Pennsylvania."
"It's in our original constitution and charter; it's still in our constitution."
"There are no religious tests."
And Lancaster, specifically, is famous for providing a home
to a particularly radical group of extremists:
the Amish.
MAYOR GRAY: "The Amish are the Anabaptists that were escaping religious persecution 250 years ago,"
"300 hundred years ago, came to Lancaster County, still are the same, basically,"
"as they were when they came here, still practice religion in their own way,"
"certainly are unique and different."
"This county is known for being a place of refuge for people who are refugees."
Lancaster County is actually a Republican stronghold.
While the city voted for Clinton, the surrounding area tipped the county for Trump.
"Amish country."
"Lancaster, Pennsylvania."
"On my way to a Donald Trump rally."
"We're going to win the great state of Pennsylvania."
"I went to school in Pennsylvania."
Still, the county has welcomed refugees from Muslim countries including Syria, Sudan, Somalia,
and Iraq — all of whom would have been blocked by Trump's executive order.
The organization processing most of Lancaster's refugees is a local branch of
Church World Service, or CWS, which has been around since 1946.
But despite a supportive community here in Lancaster,
CWS has faced new challenges in recent years.
"Someone noticed on Facebook that a group called the Patriotic League of Americans"
"or something like that, that they were going to have a rally,"
"an anti-refugee rally, in front of our office just up the street."
PROTESTERS: "Americans first! Americans first!"
"People in the community said, 'This isn't right.'"
"'We do support refugees.'"
"'So let's have a pro-refugee rally at the same time.'"
PROTESTERS: "Say yes to refugees! Say yes to refugees!"
"The anti-refugee people — we looked them up — it turned out they came from a neighboring"
"county, and some came as far as New York State and, we heard, from down south."
"There were 40 of them."
"But then the pro-refugee Lancastrians formed in a park a couple of blocks away,"
"and they came marching over to our office, and they ended up — there were about 300 people —"
"and they surrounded the people in the plaza in front of our office."
"And they had signs supporting refugees, 'Refugees welcome.'"
"And it was awesome, and there were no fights or anything,"
"but it certainly made everybody see this is what Lancaster cares about."
PROTESTER: "Refugees are welcome!"
That rally inspired an annual benefit concert for refugees.
This year, they scheduled the concert for January 29.
But at the time, they had no idea what would be announced two days before.
Last year, 350 people showed up to the concert.
This year, there were more than 1,000.
"Good evening, Lancaster!"
"Make no mistake."
"The exclusionary tactics of President Trump's recent executive orders"
"are arbitrary and capricious."
"The Representatives in this community have co-sponsored a bill"
"to defund state money to sanctuary cities."
"Clearly, they don't know who they represent."
Trump supporters say this ban is just temporary and that it's necessary to stop all immigration
from key countries while the vetting process is examined.
But Sheila, who has been working with refugees for three decades, says that makes no sense.
"A refugee flees their country, lives in a country of first asylum for two or three years."
"You're living in a refugee camp where many times there's not enough water,"
"there's no schooling, there's nothing to do, you can't work, there's barely enough food,"
"you have to line up to get your food and water."
"So you live through that for two or three or more years,"
"and then you don't know where you're going to be sent."
"You could be sent to Canada or Australia or the United States or Western Europe."
"So to think that a terrorist would go to that extent to come through the refugee system,"
"it just doesn't make sense."
Many people here are hopeful that Trump's policies won't stay so restrictive.
But they're willing to put up a fight to get there.
Until then, the mayor promises to keep Lancaster's doors open.
"I haven't called us a sanctuary city, but I think we are, right?"
"Keep that under your hat though, okay?"
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