Burleigh County doesn’t receive many refugees — just 24 in fiscal 2019, after 22 the year before — but interest in the vote has been intense. Monday’s meeting was shifted to Horizon Middle School cafeteria, where a standing-room-only crowd of more than 450 people showed up testifying for and against refugee resettlement. “Refugee resettlement is not only the right thing to do, but it is good for Burleigh County and North Dakota,” Bishop David Kagan, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bismarck, wrote in a letter to commissioners. Doug Burgum said last month that North Dakota would continue accepting refugees where local jurisdictions agreed, and his spokesman said the governor saw it as a local decision. The program has been in existence in North Dakota since 1948.

Source: thestar December 09, 2019 23:09 UTC