Crowd rallies to support refugee resettlement

Around 80 people stood shivering at the edge of Depot Park in Kalispell Tuesday evening with signs showing support for refugee resettlement in Montana.

The Depot Park rally was one of several across the state Tuesday in response to anti-refugee resettlement gatherings that drew hundreds of people in Kalispell, Missoula and Helena a week earlier. The Montana Human Rights Network publicized the rallies on Tuesday and estimated that the turnout statewide included 100 people in Billings, 300 people in Helena and 900 people in Missoula.

Rabbi Francine Roston spoke to the Kalispell crowd and said that many people in the valley are welcoming and accepting. Roston and her family moved here from the East Coast two years ago.

“If you come here and work hard, you will find a good life,” Roston said. “The opportunity is here in Montana.”

A group called Soft Landing announced in November that it would like to bring Syrian refugees to Missoula. The Missoula County commissioners signed a letter in January supporting Soft Landing’s plan to work with a resettlement agency and support up to 100 refugees a year.

Roston pointed out that America has opened its doors to refugees in the past, specifically after World War II. Roston said she believed the United States had taken too few refugees too late in the past and that she considers the turning away of the SS St. Louis oceanliner “one of the greatest stains on American history.”

More than 900 Jewish refugees on board the vessel in 1939 were turned away from Cuba and the United States in June 1939 and sent back to Europe. Historians have found that 254 of the refugees were killed by Nazis.

“We must ensure that our country continues to be a homeland of freedom and liberty, of justice and tolerance,” Roston said. “We must ensure that we do everything we can to maintain a nation of builders and dreamers that always opens its land to those that seek freedom, justice, and liberty.”

Jon Hatch, a dual Irish and American citizen and theologian, also spoke and said that the argument over resettlement hinges on the question of “What is America?”

Hatch said that he considers America as an ongoing revolution that many Europeans initially thought would fail with radical ideas about separating church and state, having an independent judiciary and building a country from people of vastly different backgrounds. Hatch said the world is watching to see what the United States decides on the refugee issue.

“If we want the world to be free, we must be free,” Hatch said. “If we want the world to be just, we must be just. If we want the world to be open, we must be open. America can do that. This is its gift and its responsibility.”

Flathead High School Senior Class President Mason Devries spoke to the crowd and said that he thought the country should be open.

“We have always welcomed with open arms those whose human rights have been violated by violence or by circumstance,” Devries said.

After the speaking portion of the rally, the crowd, enduring a cold drizzle, lined the east side of Main Street with signs.

“I think it is really disgusting that there are people who express fear and hatred to victims of war and oppression,” Lakeside resident Julie Wulf said of her reason for participating.

A counter-protest of 10 people carrying signs with messages against refugee resettlement lined up on the west side of Main Street. They would not give their full names or a group name.

Reporter Megan Strickland can be reached at 758-4459 or mstrickland@dailyinterlake.com.