Detroit "Iraq City"

The AP reports immigration aid workers 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 Detroit area.

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.

Besides contacting relatives of refugees, immigration groups in the Detroit area have been locating translators, transportation and housing, and fielding donations of furniture, clothing and appliances, Pinjic said.

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.