Washington – The United States will accept as many as 100,000 Ukrainians fleeing violence and attacks in their home country by Russian forces during the weeks they invaded, three senior government officials confirmed on Thursday.
Plans for the Biden administration to welcome Ukrainians to the United States will be announced President Biden meets with allies in Brussels as part of broader efforts with NATO and European Union partners to continue their coordinated response to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
More than 3.6 million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in late February, and more than half of the country’s children have been displaced, according to UN refugee and child agencies. . More than 2.1 million people have flooded Poland to escape the bombing of Russian forces, while more than 500,000 have fled to Romania.
The war has led to the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
To bolster its humanitarian efforts, the United States will also announce an additional $ 1 billion in aid to help displaced Ukrainians, according to one official, and pledge $ 11 billion over the next five years to address global food security problems due to of the potential impacts of the war on agricultural production.
The United States will also announce new sanctions against more than 300 members of Russia’s State Duma, its parliament and more than 40 Russian defense companies, officials said. According to an official, the latest economic sanctions from the Biden administration will be aligned with the sanctions of the Group of Seven Nations to maximize their effect.
The Biden administration has already announced drastic sanctions on Russian oligarchs, financial institutions and political leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, in an effort to cut off Russia’s access to the global financial system. But Putin has continued his bombing of Ukraine, and on Tuesday Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was evaluating Russian troops. committed war crimes.
EVELYN HOCKSTEIN / POOL / AFP via Getty Images
U.S. efforts to receive displaced Ukrainians will focus on activists, journalists, members of the LGBTQ community, political dissidents, those seeking medical treatment, and others with relatives in the United States, administration officials said.
Officials said displaced Ukrainians could reach the United States through various immigration channels, including the refugee program, which allows selected immigrants fleeing war and violence to obtain permanent residence in the United States. This process usually takes years to complete due to verification, medical checks, and interviews.
Another way is a process known as parole, which allows U.S. immigration officials to admit immigrants without visas on humanitarian grounds. Parole allows beneficiaries to enter the U.S. much faster than the refugee process, but it does not put them on a path to permanent residence.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, the United States has received 168 requests for humanitarian parole from Ukrainians and approved some requests for children seeking urgent medical treatment, according to internal data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. USA (USCIS) obtained by CBS News.
The Biden administration has set an ambitious target of hosting up to 125,000 refugees in fiscal year 2022, which ends in September. However, the US has resettled only 6,500 refugees, including about 700 Ukrainians, as of the end of February, according to State Department figures.
The refugee program, which was suspended early in the coronavirus pandemic, is still recovering from the dramatic cuts under the Trump administration, when officials set the refugee limit at historic lows.
Administration officials said other Ukrainians could also come to the United States with immigrant visas, which are for those with family members and businessmen in the United States willing to sponsor them, or non-immigrant visas. which include those of tourists and other short-term travelers.
So far, the Ukrainian Ukrainians have done so he fought bring their displaced relatives to the United States, as many do not have visas, which are currently required to enter the country and which often take months to process due to the massive backlog of applications at US consulates.
In addition to the new round of sanctions on Russian politicians, the United States and G-7 nations will also work to ban any Russian transactions that include gold, which accounts for about 20 percent of Russia’s central bank reserves. say one of the administration officials.
“Our purpose now is to completely disarm its war chest by making sure that its foreign reserves do not serve to prop up the Russian currency,” the official said.
Good Erickson helped report.
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