HOLYOKE - They have not even left the desolate camp perched on a distant, African plain, yet 300 Somali Bantu refugees have already become the center of a political firestorm in Western Massachusetts.
A year ago, a coalition of religious charities told Holyoke Mayor Michael Sullivan they were seeking nearly $1 million in federal funds to relocate as many as 60 Somali Muslim families over the next three years to this city, one of the state's poorest. Holyoke seemed the perfect fit, the charities said, because of affordable housing, entry-level jobs, and the city's long tradition of absorbing newcomers. Sullivan agreed, but advised the coalition to find more money for education, interpreters, and police training.
Two months ago, the funds came through - $320,000 a year, for three years. But now, city councilors say that even with the grant, Holyoke cannot afford to welcome the refugees. Two weeks ago, the councilors, who said they had just learned of the plan, voted to ask the federal government to take the money back.
''The city does not have the resources to care for, educate, train, house or protect said individuals,'' stated the resolution, which passed by a vote of 12-2. ''We ... do not support the decision to place the refugees in our city.''
The vote, which federal officials said could be unprecedented, is largely symbolic because councilors do not have control over federal funds and can't legally keep people from moving here.
But as the US government prepares to bring over the first group this spring in a migration that could eventually resettle more than 10,000 Somali Bantus across the United States, the topic has sparked controversy and soul-searching in this city of immigrants' children.
''I don't believe we've had an issue that reached this magnitide,'' said Raymond H. Feyre, who has been on Holyoke's City Council for 20 years.
In this city of 40,000, a boarded-up school overlooks Holyoke's main public park. Weeds overtake empty lots just a few blocks from City Hall. Idle paper and linen mills - once engines of growth that attracted waves of Irish, German, and French-Canadian immigrants - line the river.
The low cost of living and the heritage of immigrant struggle are precisely what make Holyoke fit the federal government's criteria for a ''preferred community'' eligible for special funding to resettle refugees. The grant-seekers say that with a population that is 42 percent Latino, a host of entry-level jobs, and more than 700 vacant, multibedroom apartments ready to be rented at $350 per month or less, Holyoke seemed a welcoming site for the new Americans.
But when news of the grant hit the local newspapers, it created an uproar that neither the charities nor the mayor expected.
''It's unfair to the refugees and unfair to our present population to ask us to absorb these difficulties,'' Feyre said, adding that the refugees will cost Holyoke far more than the funds in the grant.
Others point out that the city, already involved in a lawsuit filed because of the high failure rate of Holyoke High School students on the state's comprehensive tests, can't cope with the enrollment of more than 50 children who may never have opened a book, turned on a lightswitch, or picked up a pen.
Still other opponents fear that the refugees would swell the welfare rolls or take jobs away from current residents. Those complaints have surfaced in Lewiston, Maine, a city now home to 1,200 Somalian immigrants. Unlike the Holyoke refugees, those in Lewiston settled there on their own, without federal funding for the transition.
''There are many in the city of Holyoke who believe that our city was chosen precisely because it has social and economic problems,'' Feyre, 50, wrote in a letter published in Springfield's Sunday Republican.
On Oct. 1, two months after the grant was awarded to build a ''newcomer center'' in a Holyoke apartment building where the refugees would live, city councilors voted to ask the federal government to take the money back.