Vermont Just Accepted Its First Official 100 Syrian Refugees

On the first month of the upcoming new year, Rutland, Vt., will be accepting its first official refugees to the city. The Syrian families will be welcomed by the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program. The city has been preparing for the refugees for months now and their arrival will be met with some warmth, as well as some hostility.

The Vermont Refugee Resettlement program has been preparing for the arrival of 100 refugees to Rutland City. They recently just opened up an office in downtown Rutland and have been actively seeking staff to help with the upcoming arrivals. The program is headed by Amila Merdanovic whom herself settled in Vermont as a refugee from Bosnia. The refugees are going to be resettled in apartments in and around downtown.

The refugees are going to be resettled in apartments in and around downtown.

Additionally, the resettlement program has been met with some controversy that has been heightened with the president-elect’s open hostility of Muslim immigrants. He proposes an in-depth vetting process, despite the fact that refugees go through a very thorough screening process anyway. The main group opposing the program are called the Rutland First and they had put forth a petition to the city’s mayor earlier this year to vote on whether the city should accept the refugees. Despite the opposition, on Sep. 28, 2016, the city had announced that the state department had formally accepted their application to become a host city.

With all things considered, Rutland will be benefitting from the influx of migrants to the area. The city has an aging and declining population and has been unable to attract young people and jobs. The refugees will be filling entry level jobs that are in need of taking, housing that needs to be filled and a school district that could benefit from an English Language Learners program. Given these points, this upcoming January, 100 Syrian refugees will be making a home in a country that has historically settled various people from all over the world.