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When U.S. officials at the U.S.-Mexico border stamped the Ukrainian passports of Mariia and her daughter last April and gave them permission to stay for a year, she figured she would return home within months.
Now with that year almost up and the war that caused them to flee still raging, their permission to stay in the U.S. — known as humanitarian parole — is set to expire April 23.
“The word `worry’ doesn’t capture what I’m feeling,” said Mariia, who spoke through an interpreter and asked that only her first name be used over concerns that speaking publicly would hurt their immigration case. “This is something that frightens me, mainly because of my daughter and my daughter’s future.”
The 46-year-old woman and her daughter, now 13, are among 20,000 Ukrainians in a similar situation, according to resettlement agencies. Most arrived to the United States at its southern border after fleeing to Mexico, where it was easier and faster to get a visa to enter the country in the first months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mariia’s parole is tied to her work permit, enabling her to earn a living as a nanny, and makes her eligible for food stamps and other public assistance. Her husband flew to the U.S. to join them in July and received humanitarian parole for two years.
The Biden administration has said it is working on a fix but so far has issued no official guidance on what Ukrainians should do, according to advocates helping the Ukrainians. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.
Jewish Federations of North America, which provided support for the agency that helped Mariia’s family get settled, is among the organizations that have written to the Biden administration to quickly renew humanitarian parole for Ukrainians.
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, said people are scrambling to figure out what to do.
