Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025 | 2 a.m.
President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown isn’t limited to affecting people from Latin America.
Just ask Ukrainians throughout the United States, including in Las Vegas, who fled from Russian attackers in their country only to now be faced with the potential of being kicked out of the U.S. and returned to their war-torn homeland.
The actions come from Trump, who while campaigning for president last year bragged that he’d end the Russia-Ukraine war on his first day in office.
Not only did inauguration day pass without an end to the hostilities, Trump instead suspended all aid to Ukraine pending review by the new administration.
Trump also stopped application decisions for Uniting for Ukraine, a government initiative that connected over 150,000 Ukrainians with American sponsors for relocation to the U.S., through an executive order. The program could be cut following the administration’s assessment, according to The New York Times.
What that means for Ukrainians in the country who need to reapply for parole, which lasts for two years, is unclear. Even leadership within the Ukraine Immigration Task Force, a coalition of immigration lawyers, doesn’t know what happens next.
“Hundreds of thousands of Americans have come forward to sponsor somebody who needs to live in another country while Ukraine is bombed,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council. “To get rid of that program is to get rid of a success.”
Viktoriia Hrechaniuk, 39, and Nataliia Voloshyn, 26, are two of around two dozen people that Ohad Elimelech, CEO of the skincare company Jouvence Eternelle, helped sponsor. Hrechaniuk and Voloshyn both work for Elimelech in Las Vegas.
In Ukraine, “I have everything. I had all my life (there). I’m not a very young woman, so for me it’s difficult starting from zero, but I’m here. I’m happy. I’m making money,” Hrechaniuk said. “I’m trying to be part of this community.”
The Trump executive order terminated “all categorical parole programs that are contrary to the policies of the United States,” also stopping a similar program for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Neither U.S. Customs and Immigration Services nor the Trump White House notified Hrechaniuk or Voloshyn about the pause in their program.
The pair are in a better position than most — Hrechaniuk recently completed the reparole process and Voloshyn has Temporary Protected Status — but Hrechaniuk said other Ukrainians are in a state of panic.
Without the ability to extend their parole, some in the United States risk losing their status and being forced to return to a country at war, Reichlin-Melnick said.
“I’m sure that it’s temporary. They can’t send us home,” Hrechaniuk said. “We are working. We pay taxes … Why should they send us (back to Ukraine)? I don’t understand.”
Hrechaniuk fled to Warsaw, Poland, after the war started, staying there for eight months until she got a call from a Ukrainian friend in the United States, Elimelech’s wife. At that time, the whole process via Uniting for Ukraine only took a few weeks.
She’s trying to gain the same Temporary Protective Status Voloshyn already has, but that program is caught in Trump’s crosshairs as well.
Ten days before he left office, President Joe Biden extended TPS, which is given to people fleeing countries either at war or experiencing another form of turmoil, for Venezuelans. Trump reversed that decision Wednesday, with many migrants’s status expiring in April.
New Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told “Fox and Friends” that revoking Biden’s extension meant migrants would not violate “our laws for another 18 months.”
Reichlin-Melnick said that “nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Any person who resides here with Temporary Protected Status is residing in the country legally, period. That said, we have so far only seen the administration express opposition to (TPS) for Venezuelans,” he said.
But Trump tried to end TPS for multiple countries during his first term, which is raising concerns that he could expand his efforts again, Reichlin-Melnick said. The Biden administration extended TPS for Ukrainians for two years on Jan. 10.
With Ukraine under martial law, Hrechaniuk’s brother and Voloshyn’s father can’t leave the country as the military gets more desperate for fresh soldiers. The country last year lowered its conscription age from 27 to 25.
“I’m very worried about my brother. I don’t want to hear (that) he will go to war. I do not want to hear (that) he will die,” Hrechaniuk said. “He never took a weapon in his hand, you know? So for me, it’s difficult.”
And without U.S. aid, Elimelech worries about what will happen to Ukraine.
As of November, nearly 7 million people have fled the country, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, and over 14 million Ukrainians required humanitarian assistance last year.
Nearly 200,000 Ukrainian and Russian troops have been killed in the war, The New York Times reported last August.
“Everything in Ukraine can go south very fast,” Elimelech said. “This may even (put) more pressure on what people are going to do because since that started last week, (there) has been a lot of bombings in Ukraine … that used to be (happening) periodically.”
There’s little recourse for Ukrainians in the U.S. with expiring parole. People can still file independent requests for humanitarian parole, but that’s also been made more difficult by the change in administrations.
Now, each approval must be signed off by senior officials within U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Reichlin-Melnick said. That’s more common for high-profile or unique cases, but it generally hasn’t been required for “garden variety” requests, he added.
It’s still early in the Trump administration, and Elimelech believes that ending the war in Ukraine is a top priority for the new president. Trump ran on being a “peacemaker” and quickly helped maneuver a cease-fire deal in Gaza.
Speaking to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland on a Jan. 23 video call, Trump said he wanted to “get that war ended,” referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We hope so,” said Hrechaniuk, who added that she doesn’t believe in politics anymore, “but I’m not very sure that it will be soon.”
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