“I was the one that had to call my parents to wake them up at night. It was 4 a.m. there. And I said the words: ‘The war has started. Run.’ It was the worst thing that I have ever done.” Ksenia, a 17-year-old exchange student from Ukraine, recalled in an interview with the HPR.
On May 13, 2021, at 5:49 p.m. in her hometown of Uzhhorod, Ukraine, Ksenia received a phone call from the Future Leaders Exchange Program telling her that she had won a scholarship to study abroad for a year in a United States high school. When she hopped off the plane just two months later, filled with excitement and anticipation, she could not have imagined the catastrophe that would storm her country in the months to come.
On Feb. 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin declared that he would conduct “a special military operation” to “demilitarise and denazify Ukraine.” Minutes later, around 4 a.m. in Ukraine, invasions began from the northern, northeastern, and southeastern borders with missile strikes targeting major cities such as Kyiv and Kharkiv. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, not only provoked an overwhelming wave of refugees and immigrants worldwide but also left a group of Ukrainian students helpless in the U.S. with their plans unsure and homes destroyed. While special programs, legislation, and volunteers keep emerging, more is needed to provide aid to those suffering in this humanitarian crisis, especially the young civilians studying away from home.
The Horror at Home
“It was still Feb. 23 here in the U.S., and I was cooking a dish for my next-day presentation at school about Ukraine. Around 9 p.m., my phone started blowing up,” 17-year-old Krystyna told the HPR. “I saw a message from my friend that she just woke up because something exploded. She was like, ‘Promise me that we’re going to see each other again. They are shooting us. I don’t know if I’m going to wake up the next morning.’”
Kharkiv, Krystyna’s home city, is the second largest city in Ukraine whose northern edge is merely ten miles away from the Russia-Ukraine border. Her family and friends were among the first to hear the bombing at 4 a.m. “My parents just packed everything. And they went to a small town near Kharkiv,” Krystyna continued. “They don’t have water. They sometimes don’t have electricity. Sometimes, I am just calling and no one is responding. And I am like … ‘Nervous time!’”
Krystyna finished her sentence jocosely, as if commentating on the latest talk show and not her hometown that is still actively bombed and destroyed.
Like Ksenia, Krystyna arrived in the U.S. through FLEX. Conducted by American Councils for International Education with grants from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, FLEX is a “highly competitive, merit-based scholarship program” that allows selected high school students from 22 countries in Eurasia, mostly from central and eastern Europe, to spend an academic year living with a host family and studying in a U.S. high school. Valerie Frank, director of secondary school administration at American Councils for International Education, shared with the HPR that the program only selects 900 to 1,000 students after three rounds of competition after receiving an average of 40,000 to 45,000 applications. Approximately 180 of the selected students are from Ukraine.
“Before the invasion, I was having a good experience in the U.S.” Krystyna recalled. She was acting in the school’s musical production, presenting to American peers about her culture, and planning to return to Ukraine on May 10. The invasion changed everything. “We all had this hope that this is just going to end in a couple of weeks. But one day, my host parents were like, ‘You know, this war can actually continue for years.’”
“I was really surprised because we did not expect invasions with missiles and the Russians beginning to shoot people,” Bohdana, a FLEX student who has just finished her sophomore year in the U.S., said in an interview with the HPR.
The worries and stress brought by the Feb. 24 invasion perhaps still are vivid in their minds. Already burdened by the war at home, these Ukrainian exchange students from FLEX now must deal with critical questions about their impending future: As the year-long scholarship concludes, where should they go? What should they do? And how? Among other Ukrainian refugees seeking places to go, these seventeen-year-olds now need to decide for themselves.
US Immigration Legislation: What is in Place?
In response to the rising humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and the increasing number of Ukrainian refugees at the U.S.-Mexico border, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Mar. 11 temporarily exempted Ukrainians from Title 42, a Trump-era public health order which has sought to limit COVID-19 spreads by allowing the authority to turn away migrants and asylum-seekers at the border. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deemed that the Title 42 limitation was no longer necessary for COVID-19 concerns, the Biden administration’s effort to lift the migration barrier was blocked by federal district courts, rendering the Title still in effect.
Realizing the lack of legal consulting at the border, immigration attorney Dana Bucin traveled from Connecticut to a refugee camp in Tijuana, Mexico, aiding Ukrainians to legally cross the border into the U.S. “My colleague and I were the only two immigration lawyers on site [of the refugee camp] for the entire three days that we were there,” said Bucin in an interview with the HPR, “We counseled them on all aspects of how to gain legal entry.” By the end of their three-day stay, she estimated that around 2,000 refugees had crossed the border with their help.
With an immigration policy emphasizing family reunification, more than half of the U.S. migrants in the 2019 fiscal year were given lawful permanent residence to unite with their spouses, children, siblings, or parents who are either U.S. citizens or green card holders. Of the 1,031,765 immigrants admitted in fiscal 2019, 80,908 — 8% — were refugees, whereas employment-based and family-sponsored migration took up 14% and 69% respectively. The same year, former president Donald Trump signed to limit refugee admissions to 18,000 in fiscal 2020. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, only 11,411 refugees — 0.0034% of the U.S. population — were admitted in fiscal 2021 by the U.S., even after Biden increased the limit to 62,500. While Biden announced to raise the refugee admission limit to 125,000 for the 2022 fiscal year, how well this plan is executed remains unclear. Nonetheless, Ukrainian refugees and others could benefit from this increase.
The exemption of Title 42 to Ukrainians, furthermore, raised criticism regarding Ukrainians being given more priority and favor in migration as compared to Afghans: While both seek humanitarian parole from the U.S., Ukrainians “don’t have to pay a $575 administrative fee, don’t need to show proof of vaccination, and don’t need to have an in-person consular interview with a U.S. representative.”
When asked about her previous work with immigrants, Bucin commented that she had been equally involved with Afghans in the past, though she rejected the notion that there was any double standard at play. “The difference between Ukraine and Afghanistan is that Afghanistan took more resources, especially when it comes to deciding national security issues.” While most countries impose visas on Afghans, most do not on Ukrainians. Mexico is one such country, allowing Ukrainians to travel to the U.S.-Mexico border legally. “I think it’s unfair, from what I am hearing out there, that we’re more favorable to the Ukrainians. We help Ukrainians more because they have more immediate needs.”
From Mar. 11, the start of the exemption, to Apr. 25, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection had been processing “700 to 1,000 refugees per day at the camp in Tijuana.” In exchange for the exemption, the Biden administration launched an online program, Uniting for Ukraine, on Apr. 25 to facilitate the admission of Ukrainian refugees.
Through Uniting for Ukraine, Ukrainian citizens and their immediate families can file a simple online application to stay with a U.S. supporter — U.S. citizens, lawful residents, nonimmigrants, asylees, and Temporary Protected Status holders, among others. This streamline application can be processed within two weeks, allowing a Ukrainian refugee to fly to the U.S. with an approved travel authorization, according to Bucin. However, the Ukranians would have to find supporters for themselves, which has been an obstacle for many.
To help relocate Ukrainians who have no contacts in the U.S., Bucin has been urging Americans to be more proactive and sponsor, or provide a home, for the general Ukrainian refugees. “The government officials have done everything that they could do: They set in place the simplest mechanism ever to bring refugees to the United States. It has a form online. It has procedures. There are fifty or so officers in charge of adjudicating. They will get it adjudicated in less than two weeks. Now we need Americans to step up and start sponsoring Ukranians,” Bucin stated. She has been helping to connect Ukrainian applicants to U.S. volunteers since Apr. 25 through social media platforms, adding, “I am not aware of other reputable matching services,” Bucin added. More matching services and refugee resettlement agencies are thus in need to connect more refugees to U.S. supporters and help them adapt to their new lives.
Remaining Challenges: What is in Need?
The U.S.’s lightened borders have offered a necessary pathway toward stability for many Ukrainian refugees. But those newly added policies and programs are hardly accessible to these students who are underage and have no income. Uniting for Ukraine states that “children under the age of 18 must be traveling to the United States in the care and custody of their parent or legal guardian.” This provision excludes minors, including the FLEX students, from the program. “Students were offered the chance to do a second year of FLEX,” Frank, representing the organization, responded. Students were also given the option to reunite with their parents or someone designated by a parent either in or out of Ukraine, while some chose to apply for universities in the U.S. and study under an F-1 student visa.
“We advised everyone to apply for Temporary Protected Status,” Frank added, “As soon as you apply for TPS, you are protected by it. It is the easiest backup plan.” The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services states that Ukrainian nationals and residents are able to apply for TPS from Apr. 19, 2022, through Oct. 19, 2023, which will ensure that they cannot be detained by the Department of Homeland Security “on the basis of his or her immigration status.”
What about bringing their parents or legal guardians to the U.S.? “As for now, I have not seen them for a year. And I won’t see them for the next year for sure,” Ksenia said, “It’s really a bad thing when your parents tell you to not come home.”
TPS is only granted to those who have been on U.S. soil before Apr. 19. Migration on the grounds of family-reunification does not apply to the parents. The only way to bring the parents of those students to the U.S., then, would be through Uniting for Ukraine separately from the students, mentioned Bucin. The question left is, can individual U.S. citizens in these students’ current communities step up to be the supporters of the students’ families?
A Battlefield in the US: Future and College
The FLEX students now see their plans changing almost every week. By the time of this interview, Bohdana, only 16 years old, has already returned to her hometown in Western Ukraine, where the war has not directly impacted her daily life. Yet Krystyna and Ksenia are still trying to solidify their futures.
“I got lucky with my host family, and they are letting me do whatever I need,” Krystyna, a recent graduate of the Class of 2022, said. “I realized that I wanted to go to college. I want to continue to do things that I had planned before the war started.” Ksenia seconded this remark, saying “When the invasion started, I felt like I needed to go back to Ukraine and help. But now, my plan is to get an American high school diploma and then pursue my schooling in the U.S.” Ksenia had just been offered a full scholarship at a boarding school where she made a presentation about Ukraine: “I understand now that I am here in America for a reason.”
But with college comes the formidable question of how to pay for it. In a country where the average wage is only 14,500 Ukrainian hryvnia ($493) per month in January 2022, the five-figure tuition for most U.S. colleges seem formidable. “I applied for scholarships. And I am just waiting for a miracle so that I can go,” said Krystyna, whose college orientation would occur in mid-August. But at the time of the interview, she still did not know if she could afford to attend.
“There are already lots of people helping refugees and sending billions and billions of dollars to help Ukraine. I really appreciate it. But it is just a one-time help,” commented Ksenia. Both Ksenia and Krystyna believed that Ukranian kids and teenagers would be the ones in need, for they would be the generation to rebuild Ukraine and heal the wounded land.
“I can go to the battlefield and fight, but I can have my own battlefield here. I can make new connections. I can spread information. But I could have never done this without the support of the American public, government, and schools,” Ksenia continued, “I have this plan to get a good education here, so that I could help rebuild my country because I know that I am capable of that.”
Education will not be a one-time help. Its impact can and will affect future relations between the U.S. and Ukraine as those teenagers grow to be their country’s next leaders. They may not have money or a home. But they do have a heart full of ambition. And what now hinders them is merely a lack of financial aid.
The U.S. general public has been incredibly supportive and helpful. But there is so much more that is needed. For those Ukrainian exchange students, they need affordable plans for college, a critical step to achieve their goal of rebuilding their country. Most Ukrainian refugees are in need of support to enter the U.S., settle down, and begin their new lives. They need supporters — citizens and lawful residents alike — to bring them to the U.S. through the Uniting for Ukraine program. They need help without boundaries — help that comes from any person and institution who is willing to offer it.
Image by Max Kukurudziak is licensed under the Unsplash License.
