Marking World Refugee Day, Kenney vows to make Philly 'a sanctuary for people who need protection'

Doubling down on Philadelphia's high-profile support for immigrants and refugees, Mayor Kenney on Monday pushed back against national candidates who "use immigration as a political football."

"I'm not going to allow anyone, Donald Trump or anyone," to impugn immigrants and refugees, he said. "Philadelphia is going to be a sanctuary for people who need protection."

Kenney's remarks were part of a City Hall reception for World Refugee Day, an international observance held annually on June 20, now in its 15th year.

The event springs from a United Nations General Assembly resolution honoring the courage and resilience of refugees.

The celebrations in cities across the world are designed to raise consciousness about the plight of refugees forced to flee their homelands, people forced to relocate within war-torn countries, and anyone with "a well-founded fear of persecution" who seeks asylum.

Approximately 65 million people are in those dire straits, more than at any time since World War II, according to the U.N. If they were a nation, a U.N. report noted, "they would make up the 21st largest in the world."

Juliane Ramic of Nationalities Service Center, a resettlement agency with offices in Center City, said about 85,000 refugees are resettled in the United States annually and about 800 a year end up in Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia event drew about 120 people to the Mayor's Reception Room, including members of the city's Syrian, Iraqi, Congolese, and Bhutanese refugee communities.

Also there was Afghani refugee Mohammad Melad Saghar, who came to Philadelphia in 2015, lives in the Northeast, and works at the 12th and Spruce Streets branch of Tria Cafe. He started in the kitchen and was quickly promoted to management.

"He commands respect. He was always doing more work than what was assigned," said cafe coworker Andrew Crowley, who accompanied Saghar to City Hall.

The reception room was decorated with large black-and-white photographs of the city's immigrant and refugee communities. The pictures were taken over three decades by documentary still photographer Harvey Finkle. The title of the show was "Humans, Not Illegals."

Among the guests was Judith Bernstein Baker, executive director of HIAS Pennsylvania, a multiservice agency that serves immigrants and refugees.

Some politicians, she said, "are playing on people's fears, but I don't think they speak for the majority of the American people. We see just the opposite - with an outpouring of support [for refugees] from every faith community."

mmatza@phillynews.com

215-854-2541@MichaelMatza1