Kona Realtor Bob Myers never worried about immigration before, but lately he has been watching television coverage of the refugee crisis in Europe and the terrorist attacks in Paris. His gut reaction is, “I don’t want it coming here,” he said.

Myers is retired from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and said he is licensed to carry a concealed firearm. He hasn’t packed a gun in the 25 years he has lived in Hawaii, but now he wonders whether someday he might need to be armed.

“I don’t want to do it again, but if we have some type of terrorist situation occur in Hawaii, I will start carrying a weapon again, and I don’t want to do that,” said Myers. “I’m 70 years old. These are my golden years. This isn’t what I planned for my future.”

“I’m saying, ‘Stop,’” he said. “Let’s just pause, let’s take a breath, let’s look at the system that brings immigrants into this country and make sure that we’re not bringing in the type of problems that we’re seeing around the world.”

Myers’ concerns contrast sharply with a long-standing political narrative that portrays Hawaii as a “melting pot” that welcomes all sorts of immigrants and newcomers. That inclusiveness has been a Hawaii Democratic Party talking point for decades, but now some observers contend it is being questioned or even rejected by a significant portion of the voting public.

Democratic Gov. David Ige was apparently surprised by the public outcry when he told reporters earlier this month that Hawaii would welcome Syrian refugees. In a statement distributed to the media, Ige explained that “Hawaii and our nation have a long history of welcoming refugees impacted by war and oppression. Hawaii is the Aloha State, known for its tradition of welcoming all people with tolerance and mutual respect.”

That’s the kind of message Hawaii Democrats have offered up for many years, but suddenly it generated hundreds of emails and calls to the Governor’s Office from people alarmed at the prospect of receiving Syrian refugees.

Myers drafted a petition calling for a pause in immigration into Hawaii, and another online petition attacking Ige on the refugee issue collected more than 14,000 signatures.

Colin Moore, assistant professor of political science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said Ige should have seen that controversy coming.

“In a community that is already scared of people who potentially could be terrorists, and in a state where we really can’t even take care of our own, I don’t understand why he would have been surprised by the reaction,” Moore said. “It seems like anyone would have anticipated that.”

Moore maintains that Hawaii residents are concerned about the pervasive homelessness problem, and many are unhappy with the latest wave of immigration from Micronesia, “so I don’t think we’re a particularly welcoming place for immigrants anymore.”

“Politicians and the public, we like to think of ourselves as a welcoming place, but I’m not sure that the evidence really indicates that we are,” he said.

Hawaii voters are also increasingly influenced by the sharp, sometimes angry mainland debate on immigration that Donald Trump is using this year as a core issue in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, said Todd Belt, professor of political science at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

On the highly polarized national political scene, Republicans have seized on voters’ immigration concerns as a way to attack President Barack Obama’s administration, charging that the president has not done enough to address the immigration issue, Belt said.

Voters in Hawaii and elsewhere are becoming increasingly focused on cable news shows and online information sources that highlight polarized national debates such as immigration, he said. “More and more of what people know and follow about politics is on the national level rather than the state and local level,” Belt said.

All of that means Ige’s mild expression of Hawaii’s aloha for refugees “really opened him up to criticism because of the ongoing political climate,” Belt said. “There didn’t seem to have been any particular benefit to have said that, and certainly it was a dangerous thing to have made that statement.”

That political calculation contrasts sharply with the positions of some prominent Hawaii Democrats such as U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, who took to the Senate floor this month to “speak out against anti-immigrant sentiment.”

Hirono was born in Japan and arrived in Hawaii as a child, and she described herself in her floor speech as “the only immigrant serving in the U.S. Senate today.” She urged her colleagues to act on comprehensive immigration reform.

“We cannot continue to be inactive in Congress while millions of people remain in the shadows,” Hirono said in her speech, a reference to illegal immigrants now living in the United States.

U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard staked out her own controversial immigration position during a House vote Nov. 19 on a bill called the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act of 2015, or the SAFE Act. Gabbard, who represents rural Oahu and the neighbor islands, said her vote on that measure has been misrepresented by some and misunderstood by others.

“There is a huge amount of misinformation that’s being circulated regarding this vote,” Gabbard said. “It does not in any way slow down or inhibit the most vulnerable refugees — women, children, orphans, elderly — from going through the current screening process and entering our country and seeking refuge here.”

Gabbard said the recent outcry over Ige’s statement welcoming Syrian refugees shows Hawaii residents have concerns about security and other challenges the state is facing but does not suggest changing attitudes in Hawaii toward immigration.

“I don’t believe for a minute that Hawaii has become a place that is somehow intolerant toward immigrants,” Gabbard said. “I think that our culture and our people and our communities continue to represent the same aloha spirit that they always have.”

The SAFE Act was introduced and backed by the Republican House majority, and would require the secretary of homeland security, the head of the FBI and the director of national intelligence to sign off on each refugee arriving from Iraq and Syria to confirm each person is not a threat. Supporters say it would also require a pause in resettlement efforts while the program is adjusted to comply with the new law.

The measure passed the House on a 289-137 vote, with Gabbard joining 46 other Democrats voting in favor of it, but Obama has threatened to veto the bill if it is approved in the Senate. Gabbard said the administration objects to the measure because officials say they do not have the resources to implement the law.

When Gabbard split with many of her fellow Democrats on the vote on the hot-button issue, she stirred up her own share of controversy. Moore said he has seen no evidence that existing procedures for processing incoming refugees are inadequate, and said it appears Gabbard is trying to capitalize politically on public anxiety over immigration.

Gabbard denied that, saying she voted “to make sure the program to vet these refugees is sufficient to protect Americans.” She recalled a case in 2009 when two Iraqis who were allowed into the United States under the refugee program were later discovered to have al-Qaida affiliations and were planning attacks.

Whatever Gabbard’s intentions, her vote on the SAFE Act has won her the full support of Bob Myers.

“If I ever meet the woman, I’m going to shake her hand, because she took a position to defend and protect, as I did years ago,” Myers said. “When I was a cop, it was to ‘protect and serve.’ I was so proud of her last week when she took her position, I had wished that had been our governor, but it wasn’t.”