President Joe Biden will announce ‘Uniting for Ukraine’ program to accept 100,000 refugees that starts on April 25th. He will also say that Ukrainians will be turned away at the border under Title 42 in four days
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a new program for Ukrainian refugees seeking asylum in the United States that will also end entry for those trying to come in via the southern border with Mexico.
The ‘Uniting for Ukraine’ program is designed to handle the additional 100,000 Ukrainians the president pledged to accept from their war-torn country.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion has forced millions of Ukrainians from their homes and five million have escaped to countries around Europe and the rest of the world.
‘We have seen a terrible human cost of Putin’s ambition for conquest and control – approximately two thirds -two thirds – of all Ukrainian children have been displaced in their homes,’ Biden said Thursday morning in a speech at the White House.
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To help the humanitarian crisis, the largest since World War II, Biden announced in March, during his trip to NATO headquarters in Brussels, that the U.S. would accept 100,000 refugees.
But, without direction from the White House on how to enter the U.S., many Ukrainians figured it out for themselves: arriving via tourist visa, or flying to Mexico to enter via the Southern border.
In March, U.S. border officials detained 5,000 Ukrainians trying to enter via land, sea and air.
But many, if not most of those at the southern border, have been released into the United States via humanitarian parole, which allows people to stay temporarily.
However, once the ‘Uniting for Ukraine’ program begins on April 25th, any Ukrainian trying to enter via the U.S.-Mexico border will be refused under Title 42, the public health order that the Department of Homeland Security uses to turn away refugees, Biden administrational officials said.
‘As of April 25, Ukrainians who do seek to enter the United States at a land border without a visa or without completing the “Uniting for Ukraine” process may be refused entry under our existing laws,’ a DHS official said on a briefing call with reporters on Thursday.
‘We are continuing to enforce public health authority under Title 42 at the land border until May 23 and that will be the case for all nationalities at the border,’ the official noted.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the use of Title 42, which has been used to turn away more than 1.7 million people, is set to end May 23. A swath of Republicans and some Democrats have urged Biden to delay the lifting of Title 42 over fears it will cause a surge in migrant crossings at the southern border.
Once new program opens up, any Ukrainian trying to enter U.S. at southern border will be turned away via Title 42 – the public health requirement – above Ukrainians seeking asylum in the United States cross the El Chaparral port of entry into the U.S. in Tijuana
To date, mainly through the border with Mexico, the United States has received about 15,000 Ukrainian refugees.
Those Ukrainians at the border who will be turned away can apply through the ‘Uniting for Ukraine’ program but officials warn it could be hard for them to meet the vaccination requirement if they try to enter via Mexico.
‘This program is clearly oriented on Ukrainians who have been displaced in Europe, it may be available for Ukrainians in Mexico, but access to some of the required vaccinations in Mexico will likely be a little more difficult in Mexico. We will not be helping to facilitate those vaccinations in Mexico,’ an administration official said.
‘Traveling to Mexico will get an offer no advantage for Ukrainian nationals under this new process,’ the official noted.
Over 5 million refugees have left Ukraine since Russia invaded in February, while an estimated 7.1 million people have been displaced within the country, humanitarian groups estimate.
Many of those stayed in the border countries around Ukraine with Poland taking most of them. The U.S. has offered more than $1 billion in financial assistance to the displaced.
American officials noted many Ukrainians will want to stay in Europe to be near family fighting in the Ukraine and in the hopes they can one day return to their homeland.
‘I think in many ways, the program will be self selecting,’ an official noted on the call.
Applicants for the ‘Uniting for Ukraine’ program can apply via an online portal that opens on April 25th. Applicants must have been a resident in Ukraine as of February, have a sponsor in the United States, and be vaccinated against covid.
Once an application is made through the portal, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will vet the applicants to ensure the sponsors are not going engage in exploitation or other forms of abuse that they are who they say they are.
According to data released Monday, more than 5,000 Ukrainian refugees were detained by U.S. officials while trying to cross the border to flee Russia’s invasion of their homeland in March.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP)’s recently released March numbers show 5,071 Ukrainians have tried to enter the U.S. illegally by land, air or sea.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is also extending temporary protected status for Ukrainians for 18 months, it announced on Monday, allowing those eligible to stay and work in the country.
A Ukrainian woman and child seeking asylum in the United States are transported on a bus to the El Chaparral port of entry to wait their turn to enter the U.S. – about 15,000 Ukrainians have entered U.S. via Mexico