Since 1980, the U.S. government has provided a pathway by which individuals feeling persecution can apply for refugee status in the United States. If approved, each refugee is assigned a sponsoring agency that coordinates their placement into a specific community in which the agency has relationships. This process involves working with individual state governments and, very often, local governments.
Because of the role local governments can play in this process, this is an issue that we have chosen to track over the years at CivicPulse. We first asked local elected officials back in Spring 2018 the extent to which they support or oppose refugee resettlement into their communities and asked the same question again this past summer. The change over time is revealing.
How Has Support for Refugee Resettlement Changed Over Time?
Figure 1 compares support for refugee resettlement between locally elected Democrats, Independents, and Republicans in 2018 and in 2024. Support for refugee resettlement declined during this time across all three groups.
Local officials’ support for resettling refugees into communities by party and year
This figure displays the percentage of respondents who said they “strongly support,” “moderately support,” or “somewhat support” the resettlement of refugees into the area their office represents. Data comes from national surveys of local government policymakers serving communities of 1,000 or more in the United States.
In line with partisan divides over immigration issues more broadly, local Democratic officials are much more likely to support refugee resettlement into their communities than Independents or Republicans. However, even among Democratic officials, support fell from 77% in 2018 to 72% in 2024. By comparison, support among Republican officials dropped from 18% to 12%. And the most pronounced drop occurred among Independent officials, from 48% to 33%.
Support Stems from Sense of Duty
Drawing on open-ended responses from the 2024 survey, we were able to explore some of the factors that influence support or opposition to refugee resettlement in local communities.
For those who support refugee resettlement in their communities, many explained that it was because they believe it is a duty to assist refugees, particularly those who aided American efforts overseas. Referring to those who aided the U.S. military in Afghanistan, a Republican official from a county in North Carolina stated, “where the US was part of the cause of their being a refugee we have an obligation to help.” A Democratic official from a Colorado municipality agreed with this sentiment, going on to say they believe refugees “will be valued community members” who “risked their lives to help us.”
Spillover from Frustrations Over Southern Border
Respondents who did not support refugee resettlement in their communities frequently referenced the border crisis and a lack of control over immigration as key reasons for opposing refugee resettlement. An Independent councilmember from a municipality in North Carolina stated that many people would be more receptive to refugee resettlement if it were not for all the “illegals that arrived in the past three years.” They went on to say that the border crisis has “raised the level of frustration and callousness.”
A Republican official from a township in New York wrote they would not be opposed to refugee resettlement “if we did not have a wide-open border.” Defending their stance on refugee resettlement, a Republican county official from Illinois commented: “People are not insensitive if they don't want the US to keep accepting refugees. The Southern border fiasco has everyone fed up.”
Concerns Over Housing and Other Resources
Respondents opposed to refugee resettlement in their communities often cited the problem of housing supply as well. An Independent on a township board in Maine mentioned the high cost of housing as something that “makes it that much harder to house those with few resources.” Another respondent, a Democratic official from a municipality in Michigan, made it clear that housing, not a fundamental opposition to refugee resettlement, was the reason for their lack of support, saying: “I work in local government in a very small community. My answers reflect the total lack of affordable housing in this community and have nothing to do with my support for refugee resettlement.”
Beyond housing, concerns over the availability of other resources were also mentioned. One elected official in a township in Ohio who identifies as Independent noted that in addition to having little housing available, they were also “limited on public transportation and schools.” An Independent councilmember from one Texas municipality stated plainly: “my small town simply doesn’t have the capacity to do much here.”
Regardless of the reason, the decline in support among local officials across party affiliations poses a challenge for implementing refugee resettlement programs at the local level.
Survey Background
This research brief builds upon data gathered from two nationally representative surveys of policymakers from local governments (i.e., township, municipality, and county governments) with a population of 1,000 or more. The surveys were fielded in March 2018 (n = 560) and July 2024 (n = 501).
Survey Text
Would you support or oppose the resettlement of refugees into the area your office represents? {Strongly oppose, moderately oppose, somewhat oppose, neither support nor oppose, somewhat support, moderately support, strongly support}
Press Contact
Victoria Starbuck
Senior Research and Communications Associate
Additional Resources
For access to the underlying data for this brief, email us at info@civicpulse.org.