LANCASTER, Pa. — A dull gray house on a hillside has to become a home. Another Syrian family of refugees will be arriving soon, and this empty, echoing old place needs to be readied in welcome.

The word has trickled down from the State Department’s refugee resettlement program. A mother, a father, his brother and four children, the youngest just 10. Muslims, traveling from Turkey. Flying into New York in the next few days.

Their imminent arrival explains all the commotion inside this slate-colored house in the small city of Lancaster, in south-central Pennsylvania. The state may have gone to Donald J. Trump, who likened the Syrian resettlement program to a “a great Trojan horse” for terrorists. But he isn’t president yet.