Since March 31, due to delays by the Administration of the US President Donald Trump in processing the humanitarian program for Ukrainians, almost 200 000 people have been at risk of losing their legal status.
Reuters reports this, citing internal US government data.
The Uniting for Ukraine humanitarian program, launched by Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, in April 2022, allowed nearly 260 000 Ukrainians to enter the United States for an initial two-year period. But in January, after Trump returned to power, the White House suspended processing applications and renewing the Ukrainian humanitarian program, citing “security considerations”.
After an Oval Office row with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump said in March that he was considering whether to completely revoke the legal status of Ukrainians. Ultimately, the US President Trump did not end the program, and in May a federal judge ordered officials to resume processing renewal applications.
But according to US government data released last week as part of a lawsuit, US immigration officials have since processed just 1 900 applications for renewal of status from Ukrainians and other citizens. That’s a small fraction of those whose status is expiring. Meanwhile, a spending package Trump signed in July added a $1 000 fee per person to such humanitarian applications — on top of the $1 325 fee.
Ann Smith, executive director and regulatory attorney for the Ukraine Immigration Task Force, says her network of lawyers gets several calls a week from Ukrainians reporting that their relatives have been detained by immigration authorities. She says Ukrainians have been arrested at construction sites, while delivering food, while working as taxi or truck drivers, and during broader raids in Chicago and the Cleveland area.
Some Ukrainians are “self-deporting”
Six of the 24 Ukrainians interviewed by Reuters left the United States to avoid the risk of ending up in immigration detention or being sent to Latin America or Africa, as the Trump administration has done with some other immigrants.
Yevgeny Padafa, a 31-year-old software engineer who moved to Brooklyn in September 2023, applied to renew his status in March. His application was pending review until September.
Fearing that he might be barred from entering the United States in the future if he remained without legal status, he attempted to “self-deport” using the government app CBP One. The Trump administration in May promised a free round-trip airfare and a $1 000 “exit bonus” for those who use the app.
Padafa decided to go to Argentina, where the cost of living is lower on average than in other countries and which offers a humanitarian program for Ukrainians. But the app wouldn’t let him book a ticket there. He said a US Border Patrol agent told him he would have to book a flight to Ukraine.
Trumpʼs immigration policy
On the first day of his presidency, Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting the issuance of American citizenship documents to children born in the United States to parents who are either illegally in the United States or in situations where the mother is temporarily in the United States, for example, on a visa, and the father is not a citizen.
And the next day, he signed an executive orderclosing the countryʼs southern border with Mexico to "illegal migrants" and ordering the deportation of those who entered the United States illegally from Mexico.
The United States subsequently suspended a number of programs that allowed immigrants to temporarily settle in the country. In addition to Ukraine, the programs offered temporary protection to immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela.
And at the end of March, Trump stripped 530 000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans of their legal status, which allowed them to legally reside in the United States.
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