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Fort Wayne may see big influx of Burmese refugees

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — The U.S. State Department says the city of Fort Wayne could see its biggest influx of refugees in years from the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar.

Human-services agencies say Fort Wayne has one of the nation’s largest concentrations of refugees from the country formerly known as Burma.

The Journal Gazette report the State Department says Catholic Charities of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese has been approved to resettle as many as 170 refugees to Fort Wayne in the current fiscal year.

That would be the highest number since calendar year 2009, when 297 refugees arrived. Last year, only 54 refugees came to Fort Wayne.

The figure is on the rise because family-reunification refugees have been reinstated after being suspended in 2008 following a rash of fraudulent applications.

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