TWIN FALLS, Idaho — For the last three decades, this small, politically conservative Western city has mostly welcomed refugees from around the world displaced by war, oppression and terror. A nonprofit refugee center, operated by the College of Southern Idaho with federal funds and charitable donations, brought in waves of often desperate and grateful families as trouble spots around the world flared and ebbed.

They came from Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War, Eastern Europe after the Soviet Union’s implosion, Bosnia as ethnic cleansing wracked the Balkans, and Africa to escape genocide and civil war.

But Idahoans say that those refugees, different as they were in culture and language, also shared something powerful with the sturdy agricultural families that have anchored this corner of the West since the first Mormon pioneers in the 1800s: They were on America’s side, residents here said, having fought against Communism, or as allies of American troops, or in places friendly to the United States.

This time, people here said, feels different.

In an echo of the ferocious debate that is gripping Europe about the fate of the millions of Syrians thrown from their country by civil war, Twin Falls is grappling with the question of whether taking in a next generation of refugees from the Middle East is wise and safe.