A Wisconsin City Welcomed New Refugees. Then the Angry Billboards Went Up.

Eau Claire had a plan. But opponents, mostly from rural areas, were convinced that the newcomers would destroy their Midwestern way of life.

The billboards featured a foreboding message. Taxpayer money, it said, was footing the bill for a nonprofit to traffic Somali refugees — and officials in Eau Claire, Wis., had been hiding the facts for months.

When the City Council president, Emily Berge, saw the false accusations plastered last October above a thoroughfare in this river-crossed Midwestern city, her heart sank.

“I was shocked such claims would be made,” Ms. Berge said. “It was so xenophobic, and not at all what we stand for as a community.”

Xenophobic? “Hardly,” said Matthew Bocklund, an avid supporter of former President Donald J. Trump and an activist who helped raise funds for the billboards.

The message, he said, “got people to wake up and realize what was really going on.”

The billboards marked the beginning of a searing monthslong battle in central and western Wisconsin over 75 refugees, mostly from countries in central Africa. Each one had been vetted, often for years, and then invited by the federal government to come to the United States. An evangelical nonprofit would help them settle, at least initially, in Eau Claire, a predominantly white, liberal-leaning city of 70,000, surrounded by a conservative swath of rural Wisconsin.

Standing against the resettlement: a loud protest group, dozens strong, made up in part of evangelical Christians, who said cities and states should be able to say no to refugees coming to their communities.

Often deploying selective facts and misinformation, they insisted the resettlement was unlawful and founded with ill intent, and that the refugees would bring a rise in crime, disease and disorder — along with Shariah law.

At the heart of their manifold arguments: a skepticism of all immigration that frequently bleeds into anger and abhorrence.

“I don’t want to live in a third-world hellhole,” one protester said at a public gathering.

Their feverish opposition reflects how much Mr. Trump has turbocharged the issue of immigration over the last eight years. Just this month, he repeated the false, outlandish claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had eaten their neighbors’ pets. At a recent campaign stop in Eau Claire, the Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance refused to back away from those assertions and doubled down on support for mass deportations.

No doubt, Mr. Vance’s comments resonated with the anti-immigrant protesters in this swing state, where turnout and enthusiasm are crucial, and which could be decided by the thinnest of margins.

Refugee resettlement has never been easy. But last year in Eau Claire, officials at city hall and at World Relief, the Christian nonprofit working with the refugees, were stunned to find their efforts threatened not just by local residents worried about the effects on neighborhoods but by a faction of vocal opponents, many of whom lived in rural areas outside the city.

Nothing could ease their distrust. They were unmoved by supportive proclamations, reminders that the refugees had been vetted and were coming to Wisconsin legally, or studies on the economic or cultural benefits.

And nothing could shake their conviction that the resettlement of refugees was part of a conspiracy intended to destroy their Midwestern way of life.

“They are working America as a kind of jihad,” one commenter claimed in a public meeting, adding that Muslim immigrants were “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.”

Travis Albrecht, lead pastor at Valleybrook Church in Eau Claire, which supported the newcomers, described his city as a place where “a family has a tragedy and people show up with a meal.”

He added: “A tree is blown down in your yard, people offer to help. A car breaks down, it’s like, ‘Hey, you can borrow mine.’”

But the controversy laid bare another truth.

“Wisconsin is a complex place, and Eau Claire is complex,” Mr. Albrecht said. “It has quite a mix between rural life and city life. It is changing, and I think a lot of people are afraid of change.”

Rallying the Opposition

In October, a television station aired a news report highlighting the plan to resettle refugees in Eau Claire.

The segment was positive, but it ignited a firestorm.

Mr. Bocklund went into action. After a meeting at a V.F.W. hall packed with critics of the resettlement, he organized what he called the Refugee Summit. The billboards went up. And picketers demonstrated outside a library where World Relief representatives described their plan.

Public meetings in Eau Claire and nearby counties began drawing overflow crowds.

Protesters questioned whether refugees should receive government assistance.

Each refugee would receive federal support of about $1,325 for the first 90 days. Many were eligible for additional government money: about $600 a month for a year in most cases, and for some, up to five years.

Eau Claire, the opposition pointed out, had a growing homeless population. Housing costs have gone up. Two of the areas’s hospitals were soon to close. What about all that?

Many were also clearly fearful.

In February, at a packed supervisors’ board meeting in Chippewa County, which includes a small portion of Eau Claire, a swath of resettlement opponents conflated the legal refugees with undocumented immigrants arriving by foot over the Mexican or Canadian borders.

One speaker wondered if the federal government might soon bring thousands of other refugees. “You can see what’s happening,” he added — just look at the southern border, where the federal government wants “as many people to come in as possible.”

He urged his fellow citizens to stand up.

“Chippewa County,” he vowed, “is not going to become an open border state.”

Those who supported the new arrivals — most likely the majority view in liberal Eau Claire — rose to the dais to state their case, but on this night, they were outnumbered.

To their advocates and city officials, Eau Claire seems like an ideal destination for the refugees.

In a state plagued by population loss, the city is steadily growing and gaining a reputation for livability. Crime isn’t much of a problem: In 2023, the Police Department reported eight robberies — and no murders. Eau Claire has a campus of the University of Wisconsin system and a community college ready to train workers.

Municipal officials in the city, which is nearly 90 percent white, want to attract more diversity and build up the work force.

There are problems in Eau Claire, said Scott Rogers, vice president of government affairs at the local chamber of commerce.

But “work force is the No. 1 issue,” he said. “We don’t have enough people.”

The Refugees Arrive

Immigrating under the Refugee Act of 1980 is no easy feat.

Roughly three million people have come to the United States under the law, which was passed with bipartisan support.

The State Department handpicks potential refugees, with preference given to these most in danger or need. Refugees go through screenings — interviews, cross-checks, medical exams and background investigations — that take, on average, 18 months to two years.

The government works with nonprofits such as World Relief, which assumes responsibility for helping the newcomers find education, housing and jobs.

Ms. Berge, a mental health counselor who doubles as the leading elected official in a city without a mayor, said the protests and fear had worn on her.

“There were people calling me from 90 miles away,” she said, “because their grandson goes to the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and they’re scared. Or they don’t have any connection to Eau Claire, but they don’t want ‘those people’ here.”

Ms. Berge said she told one protester that his opinion might change if he volunteered and met the newcomers. The man, she said, shot back, “I’ll volunteer to help them pack up their bags and go home!”

Dozens of Eau Claire residents did volunteer, forming teams to welcome the refugees, who began to trickle in by February. The volunteers showed their new neighbors how the bus and school systems worked, where to find an apartment and shop for groceries, and how best to blend in.

“I don’t think those who are so upset about this really understand that they are talking about people,” said one of the volunteers, Dorie Fink. “If they understood the person, knew their story, I can’t believe they would say those hurtful, fearful things.”

Kesiya and her family had fled the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008, eventually finding safety in a refugee camp in Zimbabwe. For 16 years, her family had lived in that camp, enough time for her to mature from a girl in grade school into a 26-year-old woman.

The seemingly endless wait included a final hard stretch of five years, during which Kesiya, her mother, her father and her three young sisters were repeatedly screened by the State Department.

In a recent interview, she spoke of how the future had darkened as time pushed forward in the camp.

Would a country take them in? If not, how would they survive such a forsaken place?

Finally in February, they flew from Zimbabwe to Chicago, and then to Minneapolis, before being driven to Eau Claire. Her family quickly rented a three-bedroom townhouse.

In America, Kesiya said, everything is so bright and unexpectedly beautiful.

The buildings.

The cars.

A bedroom room of her own, a stocked refrigerator — and ice cream. “Oh my God, vanilla ice cream!” she said.

Kesiya said she knew little about the refugee controversy and believed that was for the best. But she knows to be careful. The Times agreed not to publish her last name to protect her in an environment that has put normally placid Eau Claire on edge.

‘Get Them Out of the Country’

During the pandemic, Mr. Bocklund became a prime mover for a faction of hard-right conservatives and patriot groups that began making waves in western Wisconsin.

A 46-year-old financial planner who served two years, starting in 2021, as chair of the Republican Party in St. Croix County, Mr. Bocklund is hard to miss.

He drives down country roads in the “Freedom Tank,” as he calls it: his dented 22-year-old Toyota Avalon — festooned with bumper stickers hailing Mr. Trump, gun rights, the anti-abortion movement and Jesus Christ. He stops at roadsides to pound Trump 2024 signs into the ground or to wade through pastures to affix a Trump placard on a grain silo.

At other times, dressed in a business suit and a crisp, white dress shirt with a red tie, he argues for MAGA causes at city council and school board meetings, parades and county fairs.

The anti-refugee organizing campaign he helps lead has had an effect. Representative Tom Tiffany, a Republican who has been critical of President Biden’s handling of the border, introduced a bill in Congress in February to give states and local governments power to reject future refugee placements.

In a series of conversations, including one over a meal at a Denny’s diner near his small town church, Mr. Bocklund explained his opinions and how they had formed.

Married with four children, he grew up in St. Paul, Minn., in a home full of Democrats.

For decades, he had little interest in anything political.

Then in 2016, he watched Mr. Trump in a Republican primary debate.

“Incredible,” Mr. Bocklund said. “He had the command of that stage. You knew that when he became president, he was willing to stand by himself against all enemies. He was going to be resolute.”

Fired up by what he heard and saw, Mr. Bocklund went all in.

These days, he rarely gets his political information from news articles. “I don’t like reading,” he said. Instead, he devours conservative cable shows. “It’s on all the time,” he said, even on his phone while he drives. He said he takes in shows from Fox News and Newsmax, as well as “yes, believe it or not, CNN,” though he said most of the network’s anchors tend to turn his stomach.

The right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson is a favorite, as is the podcaster Joe Rogan. One of the politicians he most admires is Byron Donalds, the Trump-supporting Black congressman from Florida.

Much of what he believes to be true, he noted, comes from his Facebook feed and YouTube videos. But mostly, he said, he does his own research and draws his own conclusions.

His sleuthing has led Mr. Bocklund to conclude the legal refugee system must be halted.

As for undocumented immigrants, “get them out of the country,” he said, so we can “get our cities back in order.”

Only then, he said, can a new immigration system be born.

A believer, “full stop,” in Mr. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, Mr. Bocklund also believes that the refugee program is part of a conspiracy to alter the politics of the country.

A Democratic operative, he said, is going to find the places to bring in refugees where the party wants the voting patterns to change — “where there’s too much conservative red-leaning MAGA.”

He added: “What’s the likelihood that they haven’t figured out a way to tell these people how to vote? Or, furthermore, go get them fake credentials so they could be able to vote?”

(Newcomers arriving under the Refugee Act are initially classified as lawfully present and are required to apply for permanent resident status one year after arrival. They cannot cast ballots until becoming citizens, a process that takes years.)

Reminded of the billboard’s claims, Mr. Bocklund did not back down. Yes, he insisted, refugees are being trafficked by the federal government and the nonprofits.

“What’s the difference,” he asked, between refugee relocation “and slavery?”

He answered his own question: They are actually quite similar, he claimed. “The people who brought back slaves to the ship, they got paid,” he said. “The ship goes back, sails back to the Cape of Africa, and brings more people.”

He distrusts most institutions. He claims that the federal government and nonprofits exploit refugees by pushing them to work low-wage jobs. He also claims refugees are somehow forced to send their earnings back home to fulfill the global sustainability goals of the United Nations.

Want additional proof to back up many of his theories? He carries a stack of documents. Need even more evidence? Easy, he said.

“You can watch it on YouTube.”

The Next Round

By late August, all of the refugees had arrived in Eau Claire.

Most hailed from central Africa, others from Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Afghanistan. Five came from Somalia and relocated to Barron, a rural town about an hour’s drive north of Eau Claire, where Somalis immigrants began settling in the 1990s.

Barron is a favorite target of the critics, who say it has collapsed under the weight of the refugees.

“I don’t know why folks outside of here are pointing at Barron,” said Dave Armstrong, a Republican member of the State Legislature who represents the city. The immigrants not only bolster the overall economy, he said, but are among Barron’s most law-abiding citizens. “I don’t see issues.”

In Eau Claire, the roughly two dozen new children in town prepared for school.

The adults found apartments and jobs. They worked late-night shifts stocking shelves at grocery stores, and they assembled fasteners at a manufacturing plant. One with particularly good English skills was hired as an interpreter.

For her part, Kesiya recalled hearing the news that her family would move to the United States. It felt like a dream, she said, as if God had touched them.

“Suddenly, you’re an American,” she said, eyes widening. “People call you an American. Yes! Yes!”

World Relief says it plans to bring up to 125 more refugees next year to Eau Claire.

The opposition has plans, too. The supervisors’ boards in the western Wisconsin counties of St. Croix and Chippewa have pushed forward resolutions asking for a pause on refugee immigration.

“The next step,” Mr. Bocklund said, “is to pass resolutions in counties across the state.”

Our Coverage of U.S. Immigration

• Changes to Asylum Restrictions: The Biden administration is expected to take action to make it harder to lift its policy banning asylum for migrants who cross the southern border illegally.
• America’s Brutal Visa Lottery: For Chinese seeking educational opportunity, the United States has long been the top spot, but as more want to stay to work, their paths are full of roadblocks.
• A Migrant Family’s Struggles: Margarita Solito and her family fled violence and poverty in El Salvador, hoping to build a better life in San Francisco. The city often wasn’t what they thought it would be.
• Home-Buying Assistance: Gov. Gavin Newsom of California rejected a Democratic proposal that would have extended first-time home-buyer loans to some undocumented immigrants. Republicans had widely criticized the bill.
• When One Partner Is Deported: American citizens whose spouses have been deported face wrenching decisions on what is best for their future, especially when they have children.