Knoxville wants to accept refugees, but Tennessee can veto

Recently, the United States drastically reduced the number of refugees being resettled in its borders. But on Tuesday, the city council in Knoxville, Tennessee, voted unanimously to continue welcoming resettled refugees, KnoxNews reports.

The vote follows an executive order by President Trump that requires consent from both local and state governments to allow refugee resettlement. The details of the program are still being shaped by the State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services. The order, released at the end of September, gave the departments until Dec. 25 to create the process for determining whether the state and local governments have consented, in writing, to refugee resettlement in their areas.

Knoxville’s decision proactively allowed Mayor Madeline Rogero to send a letter to the State Department declaring the city’s position and a copy to Tennessee governor Bill Lee urging him to allow refugees as well. Knoxville has accepted refugees since 1982 through their Bridge Refugee Services program, and during the last three years nearly 200 refugees living in Knoxville were employed at more than 50 companies, according to KnoxNews. But at a national level, the U.S. accepted no refugees in October and plans to accept only 18,000 in the next 12 months.

Tennessee governor Bill Lee yet to decide what to do in response to the executive order; his office told WBIR that it’s too early to comment. KnoxNews points out that until the federal agencies decide how consent is provided, it’s unclear whether the governor’s office or the state legislature will make the state-level decision.

“As a former refugee who was welcomed in Knoxville, hearing our city council men and women commit again to being a welcoming city… I said, ‘This is the right thing to do,'” Drocella Mugorewera, who moved to Knoxville from Rwanda in 2009 and works at Bridge Refugee Services, told local TV station WBIR. “Refugees are not only enriching our communities but they are giving back.”