In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, more than 2,000 refugees came to North Carolina under the Biden administration’s Uniting for Ukraine humanitarian parole program.
Now, three years later, those who arrived under the program say they fear they will be forced to uproot their lives once again as President Donald Trump puts migrants in his crosshairs.
On Jan. 28, the Trump administration announced it would pause all new sponsorship applications for humanitarian parole programs, effectively halting new admissions to the Uniting for Ukraine program. Asked in March whether he would revoke Ukrainian refugees’ status, Trump told reporters that “there were some people that think that’s appropriate, and some people don’t, and I’ll be making the decision pretty soon.”
But in April, some Ukrainians admitted under the program received email notices from the Department of Homeland Security that their status was being terminated, and that they must self-deport — an alert that was soon retracted as mistaken, but which still shook those who received it and many others who did not.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivers remarks to staff at the department’s Washington, D.C., headquarters on Jan. 28, 2025. (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta-Pool/Getty Images)In an emailed statement Friday, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin did not address the Uniting for Ukraine program directly, but alleged President Joe Biden “abused the parole authority to allow millions of illegal aliens into the U.S.”
“Under federal law, Secretary Noem — in support of the President — has full authority to cancel or modify these policies. Doing so is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect our national security,” McLaughlin wrote. “We have the law, the facts, and common sense on our side.”
In May, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to end Biden-era humanitarian parole programs for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, which had cited “conflict-ridden” homelands as cause for granting temporary status so migrants could live and work in the U.S. lawfully. That same authority could be used to terminate the parole program for Ukrainian refugees.
North Carolinians have ‘opened their homes’ and ‘opened their hearts’
Iryna Yermolaieva, a teacher from Kherson, escaped with her two children while the city was under occupation by Russian troops in the spring of 2022.
The plan was not to come to the United States. She held out hope for a quick end to the war as she remained in Europe and waited to be reunited with her husband, who was not able to leave at first. After five months apart, he joined her, and by the fall, they realized they could no longer put their lives on hold while awaiting peace. A friend referred her to the Uniting for Ukraine program, and in January 2023, they moved in with a host family in Apex.
Yurii and Anastasiia took a similar path. They fled their city of Mariupol, among the most devastated by the war, for the United States in 2023 with their son while Anastasiia was pregnant with a daughter.
The couple, who requested to be identified by first names only out of concern for retaliation, initially moved in with sponsor Keith Mast, who lives in Greenville. The Uniting for Ukraine program’s premise was to match refugees in need with hosts willing to guarantee financial support for their first year in the U.S. as they found jobs and community. In that goal, both families found success through the program, living independently in Cary and Brevard, respectively, not long after arriving.
Though she didn’t know much about North Carolina before arriving, what has struck Yermolaieva most is the people. Because the family didn’t yet have vehicles, members of Christ the King Lutheran Church in Cary — which they attended with their host family soon after arriving — volunteered to give their children rides to school, putting together a schedule of who would help out each day. The church community also helped Yermolaieva and her husband get to job interviews and the grocery store.
“When you came here, of course, you are confused, but in a very short period we felt really nice here, because of people, because of church, all the community, and just people all over,” she said. “That makes feel really better for Ukrainians when you feel that support.”
Ridge Road Baptist Church in Raleigh has welcomed the burgeoning Ukrainian community, she added, opening its doors each weekend to a makeshift Ukrainian Saturday School where around 40 children of varying ages learn language lessons, make art, and socialize with one another.
Also embodying that spirit of generosity is Brian Snyder of Apex, a volunteer with Ukrainians of the Carolinas who has sponsored multiple families and given help to many others. One task he’s undertaken to help them: getting hundreds of donated bikes to refugee families, an opportunity he called an “amazing blessing” that he’s found very rewarding as he watches newcomers use the bikes to get around the community and build deeper ties with their neighbors.
“They’re extremely grateful for the kindness and the generosity of Americans here, particularly in central North Carolina, who’ve opened their homes, opened their hearts, who’ve helped folks through difficult situations, helped them get jobs, helped their kids get signed up and set up within schools,” Snyder said.
In Brevard, Yurii and Anastasiia don’t know any other Ukrainian families, but they’ve still found the community “really friendly and helpful,” Anastasiia said through an interpreter. She added that interacting mostly with Americans has helped her improve her English skills more quickly.
“Maybe it’s a good thing that we are the only Ukrainian family in the area, because in the other cities, there are many Ukrainians, so it’s easy to get lost,” she said in Ukrainian. “We are kind of an artifact here.”
‘Start it all over from zero’
Though neither family received the April email instructing them to leave the country, both said they’ve felt greater uncertainty this year in part because of it.
“We do feel more vulnerable,” Yurii said, though he stressed that he did not want to speak against the current government. “We feel uncertainty and it affects not only me, but my family.”
But they did not let the email faze them: “We did not pack our suitcases,” Anastasiia quipped.
Both families said that since the change in administration, they’ve largely turned to unofficial sources like news outlets, blogs, and social media to find information about the future of the Uniting for Ukraine program, with little in the way of official communication to give them guidance.
Yermolaieva said she has felt some comfort in reading about other Ukrainian families still getting approval for temporary protected status, a designation that would allow her family to stay longer than the parole program, which is set at two years with the possibility to apply for two-year renewals.
Even if they are approved for a longer stay, there’s no guarantee their loved ones will be able to remain. Yermolaieva said her mother followed her to the U.S., but arrived after Ukrainian refugees were no longer being offered the opportunity to apply for Temporary Protected Status, which she said means their only option is applying a renewal of parole.
“If they won’t give her re-parole, I don’t know what to do next — all her family’s here,” Yermolaieva said. “I know a lot of other families with the same situation, sometimes even husband has TPS and his wife with kids came later.”
Children play with colored chalk leaving messages of peace and love for Ukraine during a March 2022 demonstration outside the NC State Capitol. (Photo: Clayton Henkel/NC Newsline)At the opposite end of the spectrum are cases like Yurii and Anastasiia, whose young children are fully acclimated to life in the U.S. and would have difficulty adjusting anywhere else. Their daughter, born shortly after they arrived, is a U.S. citizen and has never known life in another country.
“We are hoping she could stay and continue in this country. Even our older son, it’s been three years and he seems to be more American now,” Yurii said through the interpreter. “Even for us, we are getting assimilated here and it would be hard to, all of a sudden, to have to move again and start it all over from zero again.”
For many Ukrainians in the U.S., those familial ties also extend to their host families, who they’ve grown deeply connected with in the past three years. Mast, who Yurii and Anastasiia call their “second Papa,” said that regardless of what happens with the program, “we’re family,” and he will remain in their life to help them however he can. “You do what you can for your family,” he said.
Yurii and Anastasiia as well as Yermolaieva stressed separately that they pay taxes, don’t abuse benefits, and abide by the law with the goal of being good citizens who give back to the country that has taken them in and given them shelter from the war. “We hope that the government will have mercy on us and will allow us to stay, to get legalized,” Yurii said.
“We are nice, we are friendly, so we try to show that we are not just here to stay and to use everything that you have here in the USA,” Yermolaieva said. “We are ready to give something to the USA and to give something to people.”
“The only worry and concern we have is that we don’t get deported,” Yurii said. “The rest we can do on our own strengths.”
‘No one’s being flown back to a war zone tomorrow’
As humanitarian parole recipients from other countries receive notices to “self-deport” and return to their home countries, some Ukrainians are left to contemplate how impossible that ask may be.
Even in parts of the country that do not see regular combat, Russian airstrikes and drone attacks are a constant looming threat, able to strike virtually anywhere in Ukraine. “In one moment, we lost everything,” Yermolaieva said of the attacks on her hometown, which she said still faces a barrage of as many as 100 bombs in a day.
A man salvages items from a house after it was destroyed by a Russian attack earlier in the day, on Jan. 23, 2025, in Kramatorsk, Ukraine. Three years into the war, many communities remain under constant threat of attack. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)Just last week, she said, her family received photos of their in-laws’ home, which was bombed to rubble in May and is now in a state that is “impossible to rebuild” from.
“That’s insane that people just may go home any moment and it’s really dangerous there in Ukraine,” Yermolaieva said. “I hope they will give us the opportunity to stay here, and yeah, people deserve just to be in a safe place.”
According to Benjamin Snyder, a Charlotte-based immigration attorney who has worked with many Ukrainian refugees, even amid the uncertainty, there remain options for remaining in the U.S. for families who are unable to return home or who do not wish to uproot their families from America after becoming part of the community.
“What I would advise is that they consult with an experienced immigration attorney to make an individualized assessment of their personal legal situation,” said Benjamin Snyder, who is not related to Apex volunteer Brian Snyder. “There’s a range of options that depend on when you got here, how you got here, and what you’ve been doing since you’ve got here.”
The asylum process, he said, is one option available to many Ukrainian families, despite inaccurate rumors that they are largely not eligible. While there is a requirement for individuals seeking asylum to apply within a year of arrival, that can be waived, and a variety of circumstances can be considered in whether to grant asylum status — though because that process requires applicants not to leave the U.S. for several years or more, it may not be suitable for those whose goal is still to return home after the war.
Mast, Yurii and Anastasiia’s sponsor, said the asylum process is “tricky” for them because they may not directly fit the requirements. “But their country’s being bombed — their city, Mariupol, was destroyed — so in legal, or in conversation, it seems like asylum is appropriate.”
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron on Feb. 24, 2025, the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Benjamin Snyder, the attorney, said his advice to Ukrainian clients who have voiced concerns about rhetoric and potential policy changes from the Trump administration is to “remain calm” first and foremost.
“I try to bring people back to earth and remind them that they do have rights to pursue and the opportunity to advocate for themselves,” Benjamin Snyder said. “No one’s being flown back to a war zone tomorrow or any time soon, not without the paperwork being fully adjudicated by the Immigration Service.”
His hope is that Congress steps in to pass a long-term solution for Ukrainian refugees admitted through the program, citing a similar law enacted under the first Trump administration that granted relief to Liberians in the United States who had similarly been under a temporary status for an extended period of time.
Brian Snyder, the sponsor and volunteer, said he and other supporters of Ukrainians in the Carolinas have contacted elected officials with their concerns about the future of the program and protections for refugees from the war who have made the U.S. their home.
“We want to remind our elected officials that there are 200,000 to 300,000 people here that are contributing members to society and that, frankly, ending the humanitarian parole program would take away our community’s opportunity to live out our faith,” he said.
Yermolaieva said she feels gratitude toward all Americans, regardless of their personal support for Ukraine, because without them, her family would not be able to stay here. “They deserve this thank you, because we came to their country,” she said.
“And also, I would like to give part of my heart to to people who support Ukraine because they give chance for people to live, to escape and to bring their kids to a safe place,” she added. “If people stay in Ukraine, you may be dead just the next day.”
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