The rest of America may be agonizing over the security implications of taking in those fleeing the twin horrors of Bashar al-Assad and ISIS. But Syrian refugees are being welcomed with open arms in Hamtramck, Michigan – America’s first and only majority Muslim city. Once 90 percent Polish Catholic, the blue-collar enclave just outside Detroit has been transformed by successive waves of immigrants from Bangladesh, Yemen and Bosnia. Muslims now outnumber non-Muslims, the council has a Muslim majority and the call to prayer echoes through the streets five times a day. The latest additions to the burgeoning ethnic mix are 33 Syrians, all Muslim families with young children who fled their country’s brutal civil war.
Their arrival comes amid a national debate over the risk of letting in refugees who could be secret ISIS jihadists plotting Paris-style terror attacks. GOP figures like Donald Trump and Ben Carson want tougher monitoring of Muslims, while Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder was the first of 31 governors who vowed last week to stop more Syrians coming to their states. Officials in Hamtramck, aptly nicknamed the ‘The World Within Two Square Miles’ and home to 22,000 people, insist the fears are overblown – and say their doors remain open. Thaer Hoshan, 40, fled Syria in 2012 with his pregnant wife Dalal, 37, and their five children, Shouk, 13, Shahed, 12, Rania, 10, Fadi, nine, and four-year-old Abdul-Hadi.
