After Russia invaded her homeland in February of this year, Yuliya Z., a Brooklyn-based Ukrainian immigrant and her adult child formed New York Communities for Ukrainian RefugeesThe pair quickly started organizing. The couple, who have been in the United States since 2013, started to organize resources for Ukrainians in the tri-state region. These included lists of places where they could get pro-bono legal help, free food, clothing and translations, as well as English classes and counseling.
Yuliya claims it helped her to make concrete decisions, but she was always worried about her mother, Yuliya, who was still living in Odessa at the time. The Biden administration announced the news in April. Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) programYuliya saw a way for her mother to safety.
“It was amazing,” Yuliya told Truthout. “I submitted all the documentation to the office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, (USCIS), was contacted and she applied to sponsor her. It took just three days to get approved.” Her mother arrived in Brooklyn in mid-July.
Yuliya’s elation is audible. However, she knows that the road ahead will be difficult. “I’m a single parent. I paid for my mother’s trip to the U.S.A. and will, of necessity, provide for her. We live in a small apartment. There’s no privacy,” she explains. “My mother was always a happy person, but she is now depressed — not destroyed — but her mental health needs attention. She could not sleep for months due to Russian missile strikes.”
Despite these challenges, Yuliya calls Uniting for Ukraine a godsend and hopes that the program will provide a way for tens of thousands of Ukrainians to enter the U.S. as recipients of “humanitarian parole.”
Under the streamlined program, any residents who were living in Ukraine on February 11 can enter the U.S. once they have a sponsor — someone like Yuliya who agrees to provide them with financial and other support during their time in the United States. Sponsors can be either relatives or strangers with the financial means and desire to assist. Moreover, U.S. citizens, permanent residents, or folks with “temporary protected status,” a designation that allows newcomers to live and work anywhere in the 50 states for up to 18 months, can serve as sponsors.
Temporary protected status (TPS) is typically given to people fleeing war or environmental calamity; in this case, Ukrainians — including tourists, students and Ukrainians who had come to the US to do business and were here at the start of the conflict — have been deemed eligible for TPS protections.
Uniting for Ukraine allows refugees to live in the U.S. for up to two years — six months longer than the time afforded under temporary protected status. They can apply for work authorization during their stay and are eligible to receive benefits like food stamps, Supplemental security income, and Medicaid.
Monna Kazhfi, vice-president of content and communications at Welcome.USThe U4U program is moving fast thanks to, a private, non-partisan nonprofit that has brought together 250 community-based businesses and organizations to help new immigrants get their bearings. As of July 8, 74,000 U4U requests had been filed, and 47.600 Ukrainians had been granted travel authorization to the United States. Already 21,000 people have been granted humanitarian parole. Most of them settled in New York, Illinois and California.
But despite the pace of the program’s implementation, the agencies that typically assist refugees and asylum seekers are scrambling to meet the demand. “We were still catching our breath and reactivating our resettlement sites when the Afghan crisis began,” says Kelly Agnew-Barajas, director of refugee resettlement at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York. “Afghans coming into the U.S. still do not have protections to enable them to stay in the U.S. long-term, and now we’re facing an influx of an additional 100,000 people from Ukraine.”
Agnew-Barajas refers to cuts enacted under the Trump administration. These cuts — 472 administrative changes imposed between 2016 and 2020 — resulted in the dismantling of more than 100 established refugee resettlement projects throughout the country. This diminished the groups’ capacity to assist new arrivals. And even though refugee groups began rebuilding their infrastructure after Biden took office in January 2021, enormous challenges continue to stymie the agencies’ capacity to help. U4U is different from other refugee admissions programs which are overseen by Department of State. It does not provide recipients with a path to citizenship or green cards.
Naomi Steinberg (vice president for policy advocacy and policy at HIAS; formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, now referred to by the acronym), spoke at the same time. Truthout that U4U proves “that when the government wants to move quickly, it can. This shows that when there is the political will, there can be a political way.”
Despite this, she said that the U4U program’s rapid growth was somewhat alarming to other immigrant groups, including Afghans who had been traveling through slower-moving refugee channels and more traditional ones. “The obvious differences in how Ukrainians are being treated are not lost on Afghans or other refugee populations,” she says. “HIAS wants to see a response that reflects global need and that addresses the diverse and desperate needs of refugees throughout the world.”
Steinberg adds that, even though many Ukrainians are arriving in America and are being accompanied by sponsors, there are significant difficulties becoming more obvious. “Employment authorization documents are taking way longer than we would have hoped under U4U,” she says. “The wait is running between four-and-a-half and 10 months, which leaves people in a bind. Both refugees and sponsors are stuck. When people go through traditional refugee resettlement channels, employment documents are provided almost immediately.”
Jodi Ziesemer, director New York Legal Assistance GroupA free legal assistance program for residents of low-income areas in the five boroughs is available at www.legalservices.org Truthout that prior to the U4U launch, if Ukrainians appeared at the U.S.-Mexico border, they were usually allowed in, given humanitarian parole, and allotted a fixed amount of time — from a few days to close to a year — to stay in the country and pursue asylum.
U4U allows Ukrainians to enter for two years. They can submit all paperwork online but there is no direct route to citizenship. In addition, Ziesemer says, “the sponsor provides a nonbinding agreement of financial support for the person or family they wish to bring in, but there is no inquiry into where the refugee will be housed and no enforcement if the sponsor does not actually support the people who are arriving.”
Then there’s the issue of potential exploitation. Ziesemer claims that advocates have already heard stories of forced work and sexual trafficking. “There can be a mismatch of expectations,” she says. Sponsors, many of them recent arrivals to the U.S. who are living in or near poverty themselves, are often well-meaning but get frustrated because they assume “the U.S. government will provide social service support to the person coming in.”
Ziesemer warns that when help is not forthcoming, tempers can flare and lead to potential violence or abuse. “The refugee ends up feeling trapped,” and has few options beyond going to a domestic violence or homeless shelter if their living situation becomes untenable.
These are not Ziesemer’s only concerns. Once refugees arrive, she explains, there is no follow-up to make sure they’re doing okay. “Once someone lands in the U.S., it’s on them to explore legal protections, apply for work authorization, enroll children in school, and apply for benefits they’re eligible for. The Ukrainians coming into the U.S. have huge needs, but the U4U program still does not know if it is dealing with enduring needs or short-term needs and the war is being treated as a temporary crisis,” she says.
What’s more, Ziesemer adds, the government is using U4U to shore up its reputation as a safe haven for all. “While it does cut through a lot of red tape,” she continues, it is of limited value without a robust social safety net.
Furthermore, Ziesemer echoes Agnew-Barajas’s concerns, noting that this crisis is coming on the heels of the still-unfolding Afghan refugee crisis. “We’re still midstream in helping Afghan refugees get paroled into the U.S.,” Ziesemer says. “There is so much desperation among Afghans. The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is continuing.” In addition to ongoing fighting, there is widespread famine, and a recent earthquakeAnother layer of misery was added. “But Congress has to date not passed an Afghan Adjustment Act to help Afghan arrivals become lawful, permanent residents once their humanitarian parole ends. This has made the pivot to Ukraine extremely difficult,” she told Truthout.
Add in the influx of recent immigrants from Argentina, Bolivia, Haiti, Syria and Venezuela — people who have not been as widely or enthusiastically welcomed as Ukrainians — and it is obvious why staff at refugee agencies feel completely overwhelmed.
Jessica Bolter is an associate policy analyst for U.S. immigration policy. Migration Policy InstituteU4U is not perfect, says. Nonetheless, she calls it “an innovative way to make use of community support for Ukrainians.” At the same time, she stresses that the program gives people only a temporary reprieve. “Yes,” she says, “it’s possible that U4U will be renewed, but renewal is not guaranteed. A person who has not secured a green card or applied for asylum can be left without status if U4U expires.”
She continues that Congress has passed legislation called adjustment acts to allow refugees and migrants to file for permanent protections. “Adjustment acts were common throughout the 20th century,” Bolter says. “Since it is becoming clearer and clearer that the war in Ukraine will not be resolved quickly — and that the country will need years to rebuild once it ends — it seems obvious that many Ukrainians will have an interest in staying in the U.S. for more than the two years U4U gives them.”
Advocates are pushing Congress to pass adjustments acts to protect both Afghan refugees and Ukrainian refugees well into the future. Meanwhile, immigration activists continue working on the ground to help the newly arrived from both countries — and elsewhere — adjust to the nuances of U.S. domestic life.
Yuliya Z. knew the potential pitfalls of moving her mother to a new country even before she submitted the U4U application. She is thankful to her adopted country for allowing them to reunite. “My mom was alone and scared in Odessa, but here we can take care of her,” she says. “I am thankful for everything.”
