How a Refugee Resettlement Plan Stirred Controversy in Vermont

Route Fifty: When Rutland, Vermont, Mayor Chris Louras, began to push last year for a plan that would allow refugees from Syria and other countries to resettle in the city, he didn’t just see it as a way to assist people trying to escape war and hardship.

“These people are literally fleeing for their lives,” Louras said by phone in mid-September. “We have a moral obligation to help them.” But, he added: “I recognized it as an opportunity.”

Refugee resettlement, in his view, offered a chance to rebuild Rutland’s declining population, grow the local workforce, get people into empty housing and increase diversity in the city.

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