President Joe Biden unveiled a new scheme for Ukrainian refugees seeking asylum in the United States on Thursday, which will also stop entrance for individuals attempting to enter through the southern border with Mexico.
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a new program for Ukrainian refugees seeking asylum in the United States that will also end entry for those trying to come in via the southern border with Mexico.
The ‘Uniting for Ukraine’ program is designed to handle the additional 100,000 Ukrainians the president pledged to accept from their war-torn country.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion has forced millions of Ukrainians from their homes and five million have escaped to countries around Europe and the rest of the world.
‘We have seen a terrible human cost of Putin’s ambition for conquest and control – approximately two thirds -two thirds – of all Ukrainian children have been displaced in their homes,’ Biden said.
To help the humanitarian crisis, the largest since World War II, Biden announced in March, during his trip to NATO headquarters in Brussels, that the U.S. would accept 100,000 refugees.
But, without direction from the White House on how to enter the U.S., many Ukrainians figured it out for themselves: arriving via tourist visa, or flying to Mexico to enter via the Southern border.
Many, if not most of those at the southern border, have been released into the United States via humanitarian parole, which allows people to stay temporarily.
However, once the ‘Uniting for Ukraine’ program begins on April 25th, any Ukrainian trying to enter via the U.S.-Mexico border will be refused under Title 42, the public health order that the Department of Homeland Security uses to turn away refugees, Biden administrational officials said.
‘As of April 25, Ukrainians who do seek to enter the United States at a land border without a visa or without completing the “Uniting for Ukraine” process may be refused entry under our existing laws,’ a DHS official said on a briefing call with reporters on Thursday.
‘We are continuing to enforce public health authority under Title 42 at the land border until May 23 and that will be the case for all nationalities at the border,’ the official noted.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the use of Title 42, which has been used to turn away more than 1.7 million people, is set to end May 23. A swath of Republicans and some Democrats have urged Biden to delay the lifting of Title 42 over fears it will cause a surge in migrant crossings at the southern border.
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