Immigration Reporter
Wall Street Journal
Luke Vargas: Coming up, the Biden administration is enlisting citizens, businesses, and nonprofit groups to sponsor Ukrainian refugees in the US. Could it become a new model for helping those fleeing conflict? We’ll have that story after the break. Several weeks ago, the Biden administration introduced a new sponsorship program for Ukrainian refugees. It’s called Uniting for Ukraine, and it expedites the admissions process for Ukrainians once they’ve found a US citizen or group to sponsor them. In the first 10 days, the program received more than 14,500 applications. So, could private sponsorship become a regular feature of the US Refugee Admissions Program? Wall Street Journal immigration reporter, Michelle Hackman, says the government could use all the help it can get, especially after America’s official resettlement system was overwhelmed by more than 76,000 Afghans last year. And Michelle joins us now with more. Hi, Michelle.
Michelle Hackman: Hi. Good to be here.
Luke Vargas: It’s great to have you. So, how is this program different from how refugees are normally admitted to the United States?
Michelle Hackman: Yeah. It’s an interesting trade-off. Refugees typically come through what we call the Refugee Admissions Program, and that is a process that can take years. The most common situation is you have people living in a refugee camp, let’s say in Africa or in somewhere in Southeast Asia, and they apply to the US, they have to go through a refugee interview. They have to be vetted to make sure they have no ties to terrorism or anything like that. And that takes two or three years. They go through medical checks. In exchange, when they come, they get two things, they get a green card and they get a lot of assistance from government and non-government organizations, including help finding a home, help finding a job, temporary access to Medicaid, and food stamps, and English lessons, and all this suite of benefits that you need to adjust to America after living in a really precarious situation.
Luke Vargas: But that is not how this system works for these refugees resettled from Ukraine is it?
Michelle Hackman: That’s right. So, the trade-off that’s being made here is that system obviously has a lot of benefits, but Ukrainians don’t have two or three years. They need homes right now. And so, the US is turning to a different mechanism to allow people in that’s called humanitarian parole, in case any of our listeners have heard that term. And so, the benefit of that is it gets Ukrainians here really quick, maybe a week to get that approval. But on the flip side, it means that they get none of those benefits. They get none of the resettlement support from the government and they don’t get green cards.
Luke Vargas: I understand that under this program, refugees from Ukraine aren’t guaranteed any long term legal status and that humanitarian parole, you mentioned only holds for two years. What exactly happens after that?
Michelle Hackman: Right. And that’s a reason that this program has gotten a lot of criticism from Ukrainian and refugee groups. A lot of Ukrainians probably feel like they don’t have a home to return to in Ukraine. Their city was destroyed. Their apartment building was destroyed, whatever it may be. Or other people may feel like, oh my gosh, if I move to America, and I find a job, and my kids start going to school, I can’t uproot myself again in two years. I just have to have some peace and dignity. But for those people, it’s honestly going to be difficult because as I said, they have these two-year grants of permission. A lot of people are going to be eligible for a really similar program called temporary protected status, which has been granted to Ukrainians and will almost certainly be extended by the Biden administration. But temporary programs are difficult. Republicans are not really in favor of them. If a Republican administration gets elected, they’ll almost certainly come to an end. And there isn’t a direct pathway for these people to get a green card. The main way that you can do it is if you have a parent, sibling, or child, who’s an American citizen, or if you find an employer who’s willing to sponsor you for a green card, which is quite costly, but those are limited options for people.
Luke Vargas: Okay. And yet, despite those potential pitfalls, you report that the Biden administration is looking at this program to see if they could use it as a model that could be scaled up. How exactly would that work?
Michelle Hackman: Yeah, it’s interesting. There are two aspects. There is the temporary nature of the program. And then there is the private sponsorship, which I would suggest you could separate out. And the Biden administration is looking at doing just that. They’re looking at creating a broader private sponsorship model. So, exactly how strangers in America are taking in Ukrainians, they don’t know. They’re trying to get more Americans to step up and do that with more refugees, but the idea would be once they launch that program, which they’re hoping to do by the end of this year, that those people that they’re sponsoring would be coming through the regular refugee program. So, that means those people arriving would get a green card. As permanent residents would get government healthcare, and food stamps, and things like that. But the adjustment to America piece of things, what I was talking about, finding a home, enrolling in school, that would be handled by your private sponsor. And that might be a church, or a synagogue, or a private volunteer organization, or whatever it may be.
Luke Vargas: That was Wall Street Journal immigration reporter, Michelle Hackman. Michelle, thanks so much.
Michelle Hackman: Thank you.
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Read and listen to the complete interview of Michelle by Luke Vargas, along with other items, at the link above.
My take:
- The Trump Administration destroyed U.S. legal refugee programs;
- The Biden Administration pledged to rebuild them;
- The Biden Administration failed to keep its promise;
- Caught flatfooted by the Ukrainian war, the Biden Administration has created a “band-aid” approach that will result in uncertainty and problems down the line;
- Why doesn’t the Administration just make the legal refugee system work?
What about all those refugees who have been waiting at the Southern Border for justice, humanity, and legality, but finding none?
🇺🇸Due Process Forever!
PWS
05-12-22