US to give refuge to Ukrainians, but temporarily

Ukrainians will be allowed to seek temporary refuge in the United States under a program that the administration of President Joe Biden announced on Thursday.

The "Unite for Ukraine" program will allow individuals and nonprofits in the US to financially support Ukrainian refugees from this coming week. They can apply through an online portal that will be available on the Department of Homeland Security website starting on Monday.

Individual sponsors or nonprofits can offer to temporarily open their homes to newcomers or donate money to help cover temporary housing costs. People can also donate airline miles or purchase needed items for refugees.

Ukrainians who are selected to travel to the US under the initiative will be granted a status called humanitarian parole, allowing them to bypass the visa and refugee programs that typically take years to complete.

Those eligible for the humanitarian parole must have been a resident of Ukraine as of Feb 11. Ukrainians will need to be first identified by their prospective US sponsors, as they will not be able to apply for the program directly, administration officials said.

Background screenings

Sponsors in the US also must undergo background screenings to make sure they are able to support the refugees.

The program does not offer permanent status for Ukrainian refugees. Parole would allow Ukrainians to live and work in the US for two years.

The program is the first US policy aimed at fulfilling Biden's pledge of welcoming up to 100,000 Ukrainians. More than 5 million people are estimated to have fled Ukraine since the conflict began, according to the United Nations.

US Customs and Border Protection reported that it detained more than 5,000 migrants from Ukraine in March, more than four times the 1,150 Ukrainians detained the previous month.

US immigration officials have processed nearly 15,000 undocumented Ukrainians in the past three months, most of them along the Mexican border, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said during a call with reporters on Thursday.

In early March, US officials at border crossings were directed to consider admitting Ukrainians under humanitarian exemptions to the Title 42 pandemic restrictions, which were brought in during the presidency of Donald Trump to expel migrants on the basis of curbing COVID-19 infections.

But the Biden administration said on Thursday that when the new parole program goes live, Ukrainians who present themselves at a border port of entry will be denied entry into the US like other nationalities.

Ukrainians entering the US through the parole program could face legal limbo if they decide to stay permanently in the country because they have no clear path to US residency, just like tens of thousands of Afghan evacuees who were paroled last year after the Taliban took power.

The Biden administration set out to resettle up to 125,000 refugees from across the globe in the 2022 fiscal year.