Sacramento will continue to accept refugees, Mayor Steinberg says in letter to Trump
The city of Sacramento will continue to accept refugees, despite a September executive order by President Donald Trump that allows municipalities to block refugee resettlement.
The order requires municipalities that want to continue to accept refugees to send in letters by Christmas. Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg sent the Trump administration a letter on Friday, according to a news release.
“We are proud to be one of the nation’s most welcoming cities for refugees,” Steinberg said in a news release. “It’s our city ethic, our tradition and our obligation as Americans. As the Bible says, ‘I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.’”
The order, signed Sept. 26, said it aims to enhance “state and local involvement in refugee resettlement.”
The Trump administration says it will admit only 18,000 refugees in 2020, which would be the lowest number since 1980. During the final year of the Obama administration, 110,000 refugees resettled in the United States.
Since 2002, California has admitted more refugees than any other state, and Sacramento has been a hub, the release said.
In the last 42 years, Sacramento has resettled 58,000 refugees, according to the California Department of Social Services’ Refugee Program Bureau. That includes 5,000 in 2018 alone, World Relief Sacramento officials have told The Sacramento Bee. World Relief is a Christian organization that helps refugees settle in the U.S.
Sacramento has the highest number of Afghan and Iraqi refugees arriving on Special Immigrant Visas than any other city in California, according to data from the California Department of Social Services’ Refugee Program Bureau.
The city has also signed onto a friend of the court brief to support Los Angeles in challenging the legality of the Trump’s executive order, the release said.
