The United States is suspending a number of programs that allowed immigrants to temporarily settle in the country. This includes the Uniting for Ukraine program, which allowed Ukrainians to enter.
This is reported by The New York Times, citing a document received from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The directive requires an immediate halt to “final decisions” on applications related to programs while the administration reviews them and decides whether to cancel them.
The scope of the programs being suspended is significant. The decision will block entry for immigrants fleeing some of the most unstable and dangerous places in the world. In addition to Ukraine, the programs offered temporary protection to immigrants from Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela.
US President Donald Trumpʼs administration has said that many of the programs are illegal. Washington is particularly critical of programs like the one that allowed more than 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua to enter the country under "conditional admission." Conditional admission means temporary permission to enter the country for those who do not meet the standard requirements to obtain a visa or other legal status.
Under the Joe Biden-era Uniting for Ukraine program, which allowed Ukrainian immigrants temporary entry to the United States if they had financial sponsors, as of September 2023, more than 150,000 Ukrainians had entered.
- US President Donald Trump has orderedthe closure of the border with Mexico to "illegal immigrants" and the deportation of those who illegally entered the US from the southern border. He also signed an executive order that prohibits issuing US citizenship documents to children born in the US to parents who are either in the US illegally or in situations where the mother is temporarily in the US, such as on a visa, and the father is not a citizen.
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