Trump to Revoke Citizenship Status of 240,000 Ukranians Living in U.S
According to a senior Trump official and three people with knowledge of the situation, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump intends to remove the temporary legal status of about 240,000 Ukrainians who escaped the war with Russia, possibly placing them on a fast-track to deportation.
The action would be a startling reversal of the welcome Ukrainians got under President Joe Biden’s administration and is anticipated as early as April.
Prior to Trump’s public spat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week, the planned repeal of protections for Ukrainians was already in motion. According to the sources, it is a part of a larger Trump administration initiative to deny legal status to over 1.8 million migrants who were permitted entry into the country through temporary humanitarian parole programs started under the Biden administration.
Rejecting the Reuters claim, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X that “no decision has been made at this time.” There were no fresh announcements from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to spokesman Tricia McLaughlin on Wednesday. Requests for comment from Ukrainian government agencies were not answered.
On January 20, a Trump executive order directed DHS to “terminate all categorical parole programs.”
According to a Trump official who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose internal discussions, the administration intends to revoke parole for roughly 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans as early as this month. CBS News was the first to report on the plan to revoke parole for those nationalities.
According to an internal ICE communication, migrants who have their parole status revoked may be subject to expedited deportation procedures.
Illegal immigrants may be subject to accelerated removal, a fast-track deportation procedure, for two years after entering the country. However, the email stated that there is no time limit on the quick deportation of anyone who entered the country through authorized ports of entry without being formally “admitted” to the United States, such as parolees.
The Biden initiatives were a part of a larger initiative to establish short-term legal channels in order to provide humanitarian aid and discourage illegal immigration.
These operations helped more than 70,000 Afghans escape the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, in addition to the 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the Russian invasion and the 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.
An additional one million migrants used an app called CBP One to book a time to cross at a legitimate border crossing.
Smaller schemes, such as family reunification parole for specific individuals in Latin America and the Caribbean, were available to thousands more.
As a candidate, Trump promised to terminate the Biden programs, claiming they violated U.S. law.
Last month, the Trump administration put Ukrainian Liana Avetisian, her husband, and their 14-year-old daughter in limbo by pausing the processing of immigration-related applications for those who entered the country under specific Biden parole programs. While her husband works in construction, Avetisian, who used to work in Ukraine’s real estate industry, now assembles windows.
After leaving Kyiv in May 2023, the family eventually purchased a home in the tiny Iowan town of DeWitt. In May, their work permits and parole will expire. They claim that in order to renew their parole and attempt to apply for another program called Temporary Protected Status, they had to pay almost $4,000 in filing fees.
Trump’s crackdown has also affected U.S. partners from Afghanistan who joined under Biden.
