Michigan Leads U.S. States Syrian Refugee Resettlement

More Syrians fleeing a five-year civil war in their homeland have resettled in Michigan than in any other state, according to U.S. State Department figures.

From May 2011 to May 31, 2016, some 505 Syrian refugees resettled in Michigan, most of them in Oakland and Wayne counties and elsewhere in Metro Detroit, according to a report by The Detroit News.

Among the 38 other states where some 4,600 Syrian refugees have resettled during the period, California had the second-highest number with 496, followed by Arizona with 368, Pennsylvania with 364 and Illinois 291, according to the State Department.

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More Syrians are expected to arrive in Michigan this summer, despite pressures from Gov. Rick Snyder, who started a stampede among governors closing their states’ doors to Syrian refugees after last fall’s Paris terror attacks, and others.

Within days of Snyder’s appeal to slow the resettlement process, Oakland County Executive  L. Brooks Patterson said a Syrian refugee housing project under way in Pontiac posed an “imminent danger.”

Patterson said at the time the discovery of an emergency Syrian passport found at the scene of one of the Paris attacks, where 129 people were killed, is “indisputable evidence … that the ranks of the refugees have been and will continue to be infiltrated by those who would harm or kill us.”

The website Refugee Resettlement Monitor Michigan provides a forum for others similarly concerned about refugee resettlement. Its stated mission is “providing news and information regarding the costs and security concerns of the Refugee Resettlement program and its negative impact on the people of Michigan.”

Meralda Hattar, director of immigration and refugee services for Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan, told The Detroit News 505 refugees is “not a very high number.”

Michigan has a long tradition of opening its doors “to a large number of refugees from all over the world for a long time,” Hattar said.

Chris Cavanaugh, director of refugee resettlement for the Detroit-based nonprofit Samaritas, which formerly operated  Lutheran Social Services of Michigan, told The Detroit News that 300 more Syrians are expected in southeast Michigan this summer.

“The trend of resettlement is definitely picking up in terms of numbers of Syrians, as we see the processing and screening overseas in Jordan and Turkey has been quite robust in the last six months to meet national goals of welcoming large numbers of Syrian refugees in the coming months and year,” Cavanaugh said.

SEE ALSO

• World’s Most Celebrated Syrian Refugee ‘Home’ in Michigan
• Read Obama’s ‘Sweet Welcome’ to Troy-Bound Syrian
• Syrian Village ‘Imminent Threat’: Oakland Executive
• Michigan Governor Pauses Syrian Refugee Plan

The most celebrated of Michigan’s new Syrian residents may be Refaai Hamo, a Syrian civil engineer with a doctorate whose haunting story of loss and hope for the future tugged at the world’s heartstrings. 

Hamo’s story unfolded in a dramatic series of  posts on the Humans of New York blog. The blog quickly became an internet sensation with tens of thousands of likes and shares, and even drew an official response from President Barack Obama, who called Hamo “an inspiration.”

For more on the story of Syrian refugee resettlement in the states, go to The Detroit News.

Image credit: Tomoaki INABA  via Flickr / licensed by Creative Commons