LANCASTER, Pa. Jaime Arroyo was surprised. The 35-year-old councilman from this small city less than two hours outside Philly hadnt expected this kind of response to a municipal ordinance, of all things. But the backlash to the Lancaster City Councils Trust Act, or welcoming city ordinance, came on quickly and intensely.

The statute, passed in late February, codified Lancasters previously informal policy for cooperating with federal immigration authorities: essentially that it wont, unless compelled to under state or federal law, which generally happens in cases of active warrants or prosecution. Practically, it means that city officials, including cops, cant ask about a persons immigration status or hand over information to Immigration and Customs Enforcement that might lead to a deportation.

Arroyo, a Democrat, viewed the Trust Act as just another functional measure, like any other thing the city council might work on.

At the end of the day, when youre working in the city, youre making sure the water turns on. Human services, things like that. So I got caught off guard by some of the responses, Arroyo told me over Zoom last month, from a sunny office above the downtowns multicultural farmers market , the kind of place where for lunch you can enjoy both an empanada and an open-face Scandinavian sandwich. The market itself underscores the diversity of Lancaster, which proudly touts itself as the nations refugee capital.

Besides being a councilman, Arroyo is the CEO of a local nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs who are women and people of color. His family, like lots of others , emigrated from Puerto Rico to Pennsylvanias Dutch Country in the 1960s to work in farming, so he understands what its like to end up here in search of work and a better life. And now, given his work spearheading the Trust Act, he gets how political that can be, too.

Youre seeing this trend across the nation where local officials start to posture themselves with this national rhetoric, he said. Theres just been a lot of misinformation on that side that they were using intentionally, I think, because its an election year.

Lancasters on-the-books policy for refusing cooperation with ICE and the blowback from GOP officials, including the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate, reveals, on a local scale, just how central immigration has become to the nations politics even in a landlocked mid-Atlantic state thats about as far as you can get in the country from the Mexico border.

Voters here in Pennsylvania, the largest of the 2024 presidential swing states, care more than you might expect about immigration and border security a recent poll of voters over 50 , the nations most reliable voting bloc, had it second only to personal economic issues like jobs and social security and this years election may very well hinge on whether President Joe Biden, who won Pennsylvania four years ago, can assuage voters who seem to prefer former President Donald Trumps hardline approach to immigration.

Trump has vowed a likely unenforceable mass deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants using, he hopes, local law enforcement forces like the Lancaster Police Department. Biden, meanwhile, has proposed asylum changes that would speed up the process by more quickly identifying and deporting applicants who do not qualify. Earlier this year, the White House also backed a bipartisan border security deal that would have sharply cut down on border crossings but Trump, eager to deny Biden a victory, urged GOP lawmakers to oppose it .

Welcoming City Versus Sanctuary City

The proponents of Lancasters Trust Act, who happen to mostly be Democrats , say its designed to make undocumented residents and foreign-born residents in general feel more comfortable reporting crimes or accessing city services. The laws loudest detractors, who happen to mostly be Republicans , say it will turn Lancaster into a sanctuary city where illegal immigration goes unchecked, creating lawlessness and straining city services in a challenging economy.

But interviews this month with nearly two dozen voters in Lancaster, both in the blue dot of a city and the red surrounding county, revealed more nuanced views, with many worried about mass immigration while acknowledging how it has benefited the area economically.

In Lititz, a small town out in the country, Alicia Miller, an 85-year-old swing voter who leans right and hasnt decided yet whether shes picking Trump or Biden this year, says immigrants are vital to the area she would know, since her family runs a seven-acre poultry farm she says relies on migrant workers. Im for controlled immigration, Miller said. Im not for immigration to the point its uncontrolled.