The mayor of Chapel Hill in North Carolina, Mark Kleinschmidt, has joined 17 mayors from across the United States in a movement to provide aid to Syrian refugees. Almost nine million refugees from Syria have been forced to flee their homes in the last four years since the civil war broke out in 2011 and, with the amount of refugees growing, calls to increase aid efforts are rallying both nationally and internationally.
Kleinschmidt is part of the organization known as Cities United for Immigration Action, which wants to pass immigration reform within the United States, and together with the other mayors has signed a letter to President Obama that not only commends him for his decision to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees to come to the US but also urges him to take in more.
“I’ve been active in this organization of mayors who are working closely together to encourage the president to move forward with immigration policy,” Kleinschmidt says. “It just seems like a good fit for us to respond as well as to the refugee crisis.” The mayor adds that he believes the people of Chapel Hill will welcome the refugees.
The Refugee Support Center (RSC) in Orange County seeks to help immigrants and refugees to become self-sufficient and offers a number of services to achieve this goal, including access to financial management and healthcare and assistance with transportation. The director of the RSC, Flicka Bateman, said she appreciates Kleinschmidt’s decision to support the refugees.