A Minnesota county voted last week to reject refugee resettlement. But ahead of the vote, false information about resettlement circulated on social media, in text messages and in flyers, a review by MPRnews shows.
Covert’s neighbor, Timothy Pomp, is a non-denominational Christian pastor in the Bemidji area. He told MPR News he didn’t write the message but received it from a relative and sent it on to “seven or eight” people inviting them to the county board meeting.
Pomp said he didn’t know the author of the text, but acknowledged later that “inaccurate things were probably talked about.” The message was passed around and reached more than just a few. Bemidji Mayor Rita Albrecht reiterated at this month’s City Council meeting that rumors about refugees coming to the city were false, but she said some people weren’t willing to hear her explanation.Bemidji Mayor Rita Albrecht said she heard from a couple of confused residents who asked if refugees were coming to Bemidji. One woman told her she heard that city officials were meeting about the matter.
In fact, President Trump has slashed the number of refugees allowed to enter the U.S. to a historic low of 18,000 nationwide. In Minnesota, 891 refugees arrived in 2019, the majority from Burma and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ahead of a Jan. 21 deadline, refugee resettlement organizations asked the 25 counties in Minnesota that have received refugees in the past five years to send in their consent for the program.Beltrami County isn’t among the 25 counties instructed to vote on the issue. Still, Olson, the Beltrami County commissioner, wanted to show he welcomes refugees and decided to bring it up for a county board vote.
While the vote satisfied many of the residents who showed up that night, it divided the community. House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler, who grew up in Bemidji,. Tourists have vowed to stop visiting an area of the state that relies heavily on its tourism economy.
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