SAN DIEGO (AP) — About 3,000 Iraqis have resettled in the San Diego region in each of the last seven years, and some are preparing for more arrivals if the U.S. grants asylum to Christians displaced by insurgents being pummeled in strikes from U.S. fighter planes.

Iraqis who settled in the area in the 1990s after the Persian Gulf War are believed to number more than 60,000, mostly Chaldeans, U-T San Diego reported Saturday (http://bit.ly/1ublCtQ ). The area is home to one of the nation’s largest communities of Iraqi immigrants after Detroit.