Let's pray.

Father God, creator of heavens and earth, I just pray that you'll be with us tonight as we conduct this meeting.

When the county commission in Bismarck, North Dakota met to vote on immigration last month,

they opened the meeting with a prayer for calmness.

And we do this all in your son's name. Amen.

Thank you.

They were talking about immigration, because every year, this county accepts a couple

dozen refugees.

North Dakota is actually a bit of a refugee hub.

But a new executive order from the Trump administration

was forcing them to decide whether they should continue to welcome these people or start to turn

them away. You know, typically, the question of resettling refugees has never really been

controversial. Jonathan Blitzer writes for the New Yorker. He's been keeping an eye on meetings like this one.

They're happening all over the country, state by state, county by county, because that's the way the

Trump administration wanted it.

And so the logic behind this, of course, was, okay, let's try to isolate the states and the

municipalities who want to resettle refugees so we can sort of expose them

and maybe take political shots at them. And so the expectation was Republicans would kind of cleave

to the White House line. Democratic states and municipalities would kind of do their own thing.

At that meeting in Bismarck, the room was packed with so many people waiting to speak, they couldn't meet the fire codes.

When the commission finally found a way to get public testimony, it took four hours to hear from everyone.

All these people weighing in on whether the county should continue to accept refugees.

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