Almost 100,000 Somali refugees have been resettled in the United States since 9/11, including 8,619 so far during the current fiscal year. The largest number – some 16 percent of the total over the past 15 years – have been resettled in Minnesota, home to the nation’s biggest Somali-American community.
Of the 97,046 Somali refugees admitted to the U.S. since the fall of 2001, 99.6 percent were Muslim, and 28,836 (29.7 percent) were males between the ages of 14 and 50.
In FY 2015 Somalis were the third largest contingent of refugees admitted to the U.S. – 8,858, or 12.6 percent of the total from around the world. Only Burma, with 26.3 percent, and Iraq, with 18.1 percent, accounted for larger groups of refugees arriving in the country.
The biggest influx of Somali refugees over the past 15 years occurred during the FY 2004-2006 period, after which the numbers dwindled before picking up again from FY 2014-2016, State Department Refugee Processing Center data show. – READ MORE
