Detroit expects half of Iraqi refugees

DETROIT - Immigration aid workers here expect that as many as half of the nearly 7,000 Iraqi refugees who will be brought into the United States by the end of September will settle in the area.

Lutheran Social Services of Michigan has received government data on numerous refugees recommended for resettlement, said Belmin Pinjic, the service's director of refugee services.

"That's the first sign that someone is in the process and should be coming," he said. "How long that process should take, we don't know."

The agency has already started to contact the prospective refugees' family members who live in the Detroit area, Pinjic said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070601/ap_on_re_us/iraqi_refugees

[color="Red"]Southeastern Michigan has about 300,000 people who trace their roots to the Middle East. They are heavily concentrated in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, widely considered the capital of Arab America because of its national Arab-American museum, many mosques and scores of Arabic-signed businesses.

-Jim