Vance touts deportation plan in Wisconsin city where tensions flared over refugee resettlement

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Stephanie Hirsch remembers growing up in the western Wisconsin city of Eau Claire when the community welcomed newly arriving Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia. “We really should attend to the homelessness situation before we bring in people from elsewhere,” said Kappus, the vice chairman of the Eau Claire Republican Party. A misleading billboard accused Eau Claire city leaders of using tax dollars to “traffic Somali refugees” and keeping the plan secret, though no one from Somalia was part of the resettlement effort. “There’s nothing unusual about having people move to Eau Claire.” World Relief, a humanitarian aid group founded by the National Association of Evangelicals, settled 77 refugees in Eau Claire since February, about half from the African countries of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo and Central African Republic and others from Venezuela and Colombia, said Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy. “It’s always ‘the other.’” He described Eau Claire as a “welcoming community” and said he had no problem with the refugees.