Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Ukrainians get warm US welcome
But few trickling in due to nation’s uncertain policy
AUBURN, Calif. — Paul and Rose Chorney’s home near Sacramento, California, has turned in recent weeks into a way station of sorts for Ukrainian refugees: A couple and their three children occupy one of the three bedrooms; another family of four is sleeping in a camper in the driveway; and a studio apartment is going up outside to make room for more arrivals.
“There are going to be a lot more Ukrainian families coming, however they can,” said Paul Chorney, 36, a Ukrainian whose family immigrated to the United States when he was 18 and whose church has made it a mission to help people displaced by the Russian invasion.
He recently took time off from his roofing business to drive to Tijuana, Mexico, to pick up one of the families, signing on to sponsor them for admission to the United States and driving them north.
“Please, God, help families get here safely,” he prayed one day this past week over a lunch of toasted ham-andcheese croissants prepared by his wife for their growing group of guests.
Of the more than 3 million Ukrainians who have fled their war-torn country, few have come to the United States. The absence of a clear signal from Washington, D.C., on how many it is willing to accept and questions about whether Europeans will get preferential treatment over refugees from Asia, Africa and the Middle East have created deep uncertainty, leaving displaced Ukrainians to make their way to the border and hope for help from private sponsors.
“We’re going to welcome Ukrainian refugees with open arms if, in fact, they come all the way here,” President Joe Biden said this month.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the U.S. priority is to help European countries that are inundated with refugees, most of whom may prefer to stay in Europe, close to family and their home country.
But there is growing pressure on the Biden administration to find direct pathways for displaced Ukrainians to come to the United States.
That is happening already, as administration officials discuss speeding up visas for religious minorities and thousands of people who already have relatives in the United States, a process that normally takes years. Some Ukrainians are making a
roundabout journey to reach Mexico, where they hope to cross over, and others are attempting to secure appointments at U.S. consulates in Europe to request tourist visas.
The federal government announced this month that it would extend Temporary Protected Status to Ukrainians, enabling about 30,000 in the United States as of March 1 to remain legally in the country for 18 months. But that does not help people waiting in makeshift shelters in countries neighboring Ukraine.
The Sacramento area is home to a 200,000-strong Slavic community, mostly evangelical Christians who arrived as refugees fleeing persecution in the former Soviet Union. In recent weeks, they have worried and prayed for relatives and friends from Ukraine.
Many have been waiting for family members to join them since filling out the necessary forms even before the outbreak of war. But consular closures during the pandemic had stalled processing, and now they are hoping the Biden administration will expedite their paperwork.
“As a first step, I would love to see the United States let immigrants come who have relatives here,” said Vadim Dashkevych, a Ukrainian immigrant and lead pastor at the Chorneys’ church, Spring of Life, a Baptist congregation sponsoring new arrivals.
But those who arrive on their own at the border can be released into the United States only if they can provide the name, address and telephone number of a sponsor who has agreed to take responsibility for them.
Dashkevych and several congregants have agreed to sponsor such people — helping them find housing, sign up for health care and enroll children in school.
“If people are going to need help, and the law of this country permits us, we will do this,” Dashkevych said.
The people now breaking bread with the Chorneys at their kitchen table said they had nowhere else to go. When they heard about Dashkevych from other refugees, they decided to look him up.
Also staying with the Chorneys is a childhood friend of Paul Chorney’s, Leonid Prisniak, 36, who had fled to Romania with his family and was turned away when he tried to get an appointment at the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest to apply for a temporary visa.
“Plan B was to fly to Mexico,” he recalled. He phoned Paul Chorney to hatch the plan.
With his wife, Nina, and three children, he flew from Bucharest to Frankfurt and then to Mexico City, where the family spent a night before the last leg of the trip, to Tijuana.
Paul Chorney met the Ukrainians at their hotel 90 minutes after they checked in, put the weary family in his rental car and headed to the U.S. port of entry.
When they arrived at the booth, Chorney handed over his U.S. passport.
“I got five refugees from Ukraine,” he told the officer, who directed them to the area for questioning.
Sensing their nervousness, Chorney said, another border officer tried to reassure them. “Calm down,” he told them. “You are in America.”