5 states account for half of 123,962 requests to sponsor Ukrainian refugees in U.S.

More than half of the nearly 124,000 applications filed by Americans seeking to sponsor Ukrainians fleeing the war in their homeland have come from households in New York, Illinois, California, Washington state and Florida, according to unpublished Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data obtained by CBS News.

Since April 25, 123,962 people in the U.S. have applied to financially sponsor Ukrainian refugees through a private sponsorship program the U.S. government set up this spring, the DHS statistics show. In just over four months, 50,832 Ukrainians have arrived in the U.S. through the initiative.

As of Sept. 9, Americans in New York, Illinois and California had collectively submitted 46,265 requests to sponsor the resettlement of Ukrainians under the sponsorship policy, which the Biden administration dubbed Uniting for Ukraine. Another 17,844 applications originated from Washington and Florida, according to the DHS data.

Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas and Michigan round out the top 10 states with the most prospective sponsors of Ukrainian refugees. Meanwhile, 68,121, or 55%, of the sponsorship requests have originated from 10 metropolitan areas: New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Miami, Portland, Cleveland and Detroit.