Biden promises to accept 100,000 Ukrainians, but local service providers want to know more

When President Joe Biden announced last week that the United States would accept up to 100,000 refugees fleeing Ukraine, Nadia Kasvin started getting inquiries from local Ukrainian residents about how to bring over their family members who were in danger.

But Kasvin, director of a Columbus resettlement agency called US Together, had no answers for them.

To the millions of people who have now fled their homes in Ukraine because of the Russian invasion, Biden’s announcement on March 24 came as a welcome promise. Saying that it is an “international responsibility” to assist displaced Ukrainians, the president also pledged $1 billion in humanitarian aid for those affected by the war.

The administration has yet to produce any logistical details, however, on how to relocate and resettle these Ukrainian refugees. Kasvin said her organization has received no information about what the program will look like, who will be eligible to apply or when these refugees will start making their way to the U.S.

“I wish there were details first and then the announcement,” she said. “Because now everybody has heard that, and you can't imagine how many phone calls, messages and emails that I’ve been getting from our Ukrainian families in Columbus asking me what to do. And I just don’t have anything to tell them.”

The State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Read more: Russian invasion of Ukraine leaves Columbus-area student fearful for family's safety

What do we know about displaced Ukrainians?

Since the war in Ukraine began on Feb. 24, more than 10 million people – nearly a quarter of the country’s entire population – have been forced out of their homes, a March brief by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) shows.

More than 6.5 million are internally displaced, while more than 3.7 million have sought shelter in other countries, such as Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia. Poland alone has taken in more than 2 million Ukrainians since the start of the conflict, according to the UNHCR.

The United States, on the other hand, has only accepted about 500 Ukrainian refugees from the beginning of the year – when Russia was building up its military presence in the region – through the first half of March, according to data from the U.S. Department of State.

Most Ukrainians who previously came to the U.S. as refugees did so through a little-known Cold War-era program called the Lautenberg Amendment, which allows some religious minorities from the former Soviet Union to seek refuge in America.

More than 14,000 Ukrainian nationals have been resettled to the U.S. under the Lautenberg Amendment in the past five fiscal years, statistics provided by the State Department show. A few hundred of them ended up in Columbus, according to local resettlement agencies.

The current timeline for Lautenberg applications from submission to approval is two to three years, and many Ukrainian families set to come to Columbus have received few updates regarding their applications in recent months, the Dispatch previously reported.

Biden’s latest announcement offers hopes that there will be a quicker, more inclusive pathway than Lautenberg for Ukrainians to make their way to America. The U.S. is considering a full range of options – including the regular refugee admissions program, nonimmigrant visas, parole and other means. But it is unclear when the plan will come to fruition.

The State Department has told resettlement agencies not to anticipate a significant increase in admissions in the short term apart from an uptick in Lautenberg arrivals, according to information shared by Angie Plummer, executive director of the Columbus resettlement agency Community Refugee and Immigration Services (CRIS).

Read more: Columbus advocate urges Biden to quickly relocate eligible Ukrainian refugees

Some advocates skeptical about Biden’s plan

The lack of a plan or a timeframe is not the only reason why some advocates remain skeptical about Biden’s announcement. The administration has also fallen short in fulfilling a number of its other humanitarian promises, they said.

For example, in September 2021, Biden raised the national refugee cap to 125,000 for the fiscal year 2022 – the highest that the country has seen since the 1990s. But fewer than 8,000 refugees ended up coming to America through the first half of the fiscal year, according to data released by the State Department.

And while 76,000 Afghan nationals were brought to America immediately following the chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the U.S. government has largely abandoned the program since then. As of January, more than 40,000 Afghans have reportedly applied for temporary admission into the country, but only about 160 have been approved, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told Al Jazeera.

Policymakers need to strengthen America’s refugee resettlement program as a whole in order to promptly resettle both those from Ukraine and those from other countries undergoing conflicts and wars, according to Plummer.

“We want to play an essential part in helping to provide safety and stability to Ukrainian refugees fleeing this horrible war,” Plummer said. “But we also feel a deep sense of commitment to people from other places who are already in the refugee pipeline."

Read more: 5 world conflicts besides the war in Ukraine that you should pay attention to

Yilun Cheng is a Report for America corps member and covers immigration issues for the Dispatch. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation at https://bit.ly/3fNsGaZ.

ycheng@dispatch.com

@ChengYilun

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Advocates want details on Biden's plan to resettle Ukrainian refugees