Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam has opened the state to any and all refugees.

Northam sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Monday asserting that Virginia will welcome refugees as set up under executive order 13888, “Enhancing State and Local Involvement in Refugee Resettlement.” The order says the federal government will resettle refugees only in jurisdictions in which both the state and local governments have consent to receive them.

“I have read federal Executive Order 13888, and I write to reaffirm Virginia’s position that we welcome refugee resettlement in the Commonwealth,” he wrote in the letter.

“Virginia’s lights are on and our doors are open, and we welcome new Virginians to make their homes here,” the governor wrote.

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Only five states have agreed to take refugees under the new order, which Trump said will give localities the power to reject them.

Northam, you may recall, confessed in February that he was one of two men in a racist photograph published in a medical school yearbook 35 years earlier. One man was dressed in a Ku Klux Klan robe and the other was in blackface. He later recanted, saying neither man was him.

Here’s Northam’s full letter on refugees:

Virginia has welcomed refugees who are fleeing war, persecution, or other dire circumstances. We know that no one chooses to abandon their home until conditions become so difficult that the unknown is preferable.

The United States has long presented itself as a haven, a place of stability and economic prosperity. We promote the ideals upon which this country was founded, of liberty and freedom. But to uphold those ideals abroad, we must allow access to them here at home. We must practice what we preach.

Virginia helps refugees settle into new homes only in those localities that participate in the Virginia Community Capacity Initiative, which ensures that a community’s elected officials, faith leaders, schools, and other stakeholders are committed to helping refugees build new homes and lives. We work with resettlement agencies that have deep ties to these communities. We have always been clear that successful resettlement only happens with community involvement.

Because of our proximity to Washington, D.C., we are a preferred location for many Special Immigrant Visa holders – Iraqi and Afghanistan refugees who provided services to the U.S. military in those countries, and whose lives and families are in danger because of that service.

In recent years, as the federal government has lowered the number of refugees accepted into the United States, so has Virginia’s refugee number dropped. We have the capacity to accept and help more refugees than we currently have.