"Detroit Expects Half of Iraqi Refugees"

[TahitiNut]

Detroit Expects Half of Iraqi Refugees

By JEFF KAROUB

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.

The Department of Homeland Security said this week it has approved the refugee applications of 59 Iraqis who should be arriving in the coming weeks. The department provided no details about where they would settle but said it has already completed interviews in refugee cases involving more than 700 men, women and children.

The Bush administration announced in February it would allow up to 7,000 Iraqis into the U.S. by the end of September _ up from 202 in 2006. It would be the largest Iraqi influx since the 2003 invasion.

<more>

My step-sister is an executive with Lutheran Social Services of Michigan - so I get an interesting background perspective. Since the Michigan economy is the worst in the nation these days with unemployment running about double the national average, I'm not sanguinie about a trouble-free accommodation of these weary folks.

[LisaM]

1. Thanks, chimp. How about some JOBS

for these people?

[MichiganVote]

2. So does this mean they're moving the statue of liberty to the Great Lakes?

Bring me your poor, your homeless, your need all kinds of stuff that our own citizens are hankering for and have been for a lot longer...