Skip to content Skip to footer

Biden Offers Protected Status for Ukrainians, Shielding Them From Deportation

The Department of Homeland Security estimates that 71,500 Ukrainians in the U.S. will benefit from the designation.

Ukrainians and supporters gather around the Lafayette Park in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., to stage a protest against Russia's attacks on Ukraine, on February 27, 2022.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is offering Ukrainians in the U.S. a form of humanitarian relief as Vladimir Putin’s invasion is ongoing.

The agency is adding Ukraine to the list of countries from which people can benefit from Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 months, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced on Thursday. Ukrainians in the country, including undocumented immigrants and those on tourist, student or business visas could benefit. In order to benefit, people must have been residing in the U.S. since at least March 1, 2022.

“Russia’s premeditated and unprovoked attack on Ukraine has resulted in an ongoing war, senseless violence, and Ukrainians forced to seek refuge in other countries,” said Mayorkas in a statement. “In these extraordinary times, we will continue to offer our support and protection to Ukrainian nationals in the United States.”

DHS estimates that about 71,500 Ukrainians in the U.S. will benefit from the TPS designation, including the roughly 4,000 Ukrainians who are facing deportation hearings. The administration has also paused deportation flights to the region.

TPS designation is given to people from countries that have been deemed unsafe for them to return to, whether for environmental, political, or other reasons. There are currently about 400,000 people living in the U.S. under TPS. However, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling last year, residents under TPS don’t currently have a pathway to permanent residence, even though some TPS holders have been living in the U.S. for decades.

Other countries announced similar measures to grant protection to Ukrainian refugees on Thursday. The United Nations estimates that about 1 million Ukrainians have fled the country so far, and that the invasion could end up displacing 10 million Ukrainians in total.

The announcement came after lawmakers sent a letter to President Joe Biden earlier this week asking him to grant TPS status to Ukrainians. “Ukraine clearly meets the standard for TPS,” the lawmakers wrote, citing the “ongoing armed conflict.”

Both Democrats and Republicans praised the TPS designation. “The world has watched a humanitarian crisis grow as over a million Ukrainians flee their homes for safety. Thank you [Biden and Mayorkas] for heeding our call for TPS,” wrote Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-New York) on Thursday. “Let this be a model for our treatment of refugees in need of humanitarian support in all parts of the world.”

Immigration advocates have pointed out that while Biden has been quick to move to protect Ukrainians, he hasn’t put countries like Cameroon on the list, despite the fact that advocates have been pleading with the administration to do so for months. People deported to Cameroon face violence and abuse as the West African country undergoes major political unrest.

“It is evidence of anti-blackness and discrimination toward Black immigrants,” Daniel Tse, founder of the Cameroon Advocacy Network, told The New York Times.

There has also been growing frustration among progressives and immigration advocates about the Biden administration’s abuse of Haitian asylum seekers, who the administration has been deporting en masse despite the fact that Haiti is designated as a TPS country.

Many progressives say that while Ukrainians should be welcomed to the U.S. with open arms, refugees from other countries should be extended the same protection, regardless of race. “We must respond to the crisis in Ukraine with compassion,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts) wrote on Thursday. “That means designating Ukraine for TPS, opening our doors to refugees and providing these same protections to refugees from Africa, Middle East, Latin America, Asia, LGBTQ communities and more.”

We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.

As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.

Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.

As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.

At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.

Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.

You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.