Update, Jan. 2, 2015:

Saturday's protests went off without a hitch. Those supporting refugees far outnumbered those against them, and several fundraisers have since been launched to benefit incoming refugees in Lancaster. Check out some photos from community members on the event's Facebook page. Read the original story below.

***

Two opposing protests will take place in the city of Lancaster on Saturday, Jan. 2., and Syrian refugees are at the heart of the debate.

An opposition group, hailed on Facebook as “End the Influx of Syrian Refugees,” announced plans to rally against the city’s promise to accept some of those fleeing civil war in their homeland. In November, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf was one of a handful of U.S. governors to make an open-door policy towards Syrian refugees. Other elected officials were calling to secure their state borders in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.

In Lancaster, several community groups scheduled a counter-protest to take place at the same time in Musser Park. “Lancaster Welcomes Refugees,” which consists of Mennonite, faith-based groups and other grassroots organizations, has over 240 promised attendees on their Facebook event page. The anti-refugee group has about 60 confirmed guests.

“We caught wind a couple week ago of a couple groups that were coming in from outside Lancaster to protest Christian World Services,” said Drew Garza, who co-owns a cafe called the Seed in Lancaster, one of the groups that helped organize the pro-Syrian rally.

Christian World Services (CWS) is a faith-based organization that assists in various world relief efforts, including a fundraising campaign to relocate Syrian refugees in Lancaster. The opposition group claims on their Facebook page that CWS is "a phony christian group bringing refugees into our commonwealth. Their only god is gold and they intend to get rich at our expense. If you look at their website the first thing they ask is for donations."

(AL DIA reached out to a leader from the anti-refugee group. Our request for comment was not returned in time for this article.)

Supporters of the two Facebook groups have communicating with each other with varying degrees of civility. On the pro-Syrian refugee page, someone commented “I’ll be there to hand out pork sandwiches,” a comment clearly directed at Muslims who observe halal dietary laws. Some on the pro-refugee side have been taking jabs at the other end. There were rumors that white supremacist groups would join the anti-refugee crowd, but those were countered by leaders in the group (see screenshot below).

In another thread, concerns emerged about the anti-refugee group carrying concealed firearms at the protest.

“The police also mentioned there was a fear in your group about our people carrying concealed firearms,” wrote Johan Rentschler, who described himself as a leader of the anti-refugee protest. “It is a lawful practice. It is not intended as a threat to anyone and I ask you not to take it that way. If your leadership would like to respectfully talk to me they are more then [sic] welcomed to do so.”

One poster in the anti-refugee group contended that the Obama administration has agreed to place “tens of thousands” of Syrian refugees in the country. In reality, the U.S. has only agreed to take 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year — hundreds of thousands less than European countries of a much smaller size.

“We’ve had a varying amount of interaction with [the anti-refugee group]," Garza said. "It's pretty blatantly Islamphobic, equating all Muslims with terrorism and acts of violence. There is a distinct ulta-nationalist slant to the things they spew.”

It is not clear how many refugees the Lancaster commonwealth will accept, let alone of religion of those refugees.

“I don’t think religion is something we even need to discuss," Garza said. "These are refugees coming from a place in the world where theres war and oppression and fear. It doesn't matter what religion they are. They’re in need, and Lancaster has a deep and long tradition of aid for people in these situations.”

Here are some screenshots of content being shared by the anti-refugee group.