The Star Tribune editorial board applauded Gov. Tim Walz for rejecting President Donald Trump’s recent executive order pertaining to refugee resettlement, calling it “nonsense” and “malicious.”
Gov. Walz offered his consent earlier this month to continue Minnesota’s participation in the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program in a letter sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The letter was issued in response to a September 26 executive order from President Donald Trump, which sought to give counties and states more control over their involvement in refugee resettlement. According to the executive order, if a state or locality does not provide explicit consent, then refugees “should not be resettled” in those communities.
“I promise you as president I will give local communities greater say in refugee resettlement. In the Trump administration, we will always protect American families first and that has not been done in Minnesota,” Trump said during his October campaign rally at the Target Center.
The editorial board applauded Walz for “rejecting this nonsense wholesale and for his forceful declaration of Minnesota values.” The board touted Minnesota’s “proud tradition of welcoming immigrants,” who have “proved, overall, a bountiful investment.”
“That’s why it’s disheartening and maddening that President Donald Trump continues his war on one of the world’s most vulnerable populations: refugees fleeing war, torture, persecution and worse. Not content with capping admission rates at a record low of 18,000, Trump has added a malicious twist with an executive order that requires states and localities to give advance written authorization before receiving new refugees,” the board said in a December 18 editorial.
The article goes on to claim that President Trump has “made no secret of his dislike of immigrants,” saying his executive order was “designed to foment division.”
Trump’s executive order is currently being challenged in court in Maryland, which could effect how the order is implemented—if at all. Attorney General Keith Ellison announced this month that he has joined 12 other attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs in the Maryland lawsuit.
According to The Star Tribune, Ellison told an editorial writer that Trump’s executive order is “an open invitation to bigotry.”
The board pointed to Burleigh County, North Dakota, which “nearly became the first community in the united states to avail itself of the ability to shut the door on refugees.”
“The idea that this hurtful, xenophobic scenario could play out in every county of every state in America is too exhausting to contemplate and could result in a patchwork of immigration policies that differ in every local jurisdiction,” said the editorial board. “We applaud Gov. Tim Walz for rejecting this nonsense wholesale and for his forceful declaration of Minnesota values in his letter to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.”
– – –
Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of Battleground State News, The Ohio Star, and The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Background Photo by The Star Tribune.
