The United States has seen a sudden surge in undocumented Ukrainians arriving at US borders in recent weeks, with nearly 10,000 coming through between 1 February and 6 April alone, media reported.
On Tuesday, US Customs and Border Protection data revealed that the number of encounters with Ukrainian nationals at US borders rose from 1,100 on average from October through February to more than 5,000 in March.
An immigrant advocacy group, Al Otro Lado, told Sputnik on Monday that US border authorities are now processing from 400 to 1,000 refugees from Ukraine per day.
Ukrainian refugees wait near the U.S. border Monday, April 4, 2022, in Tijuana, Mexico. About 200 to 300 Ukrainians were being admitted daily at the San Ysidro crossing this week, with hundreds more arriving in Tijuana, according to volunteers who manage the waiting list. There were 973 families or single adults waiting on Tuesday.
© AP Photo / Gregory Bull
Meanwhile, the Biden administration recently announced that the US will welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, an alarming figure given the initial plan capped all refugee admissions from five global regions at 125,000 for fiscal year 2022.
The US resettled at least 76,000 Afghan refugees since the fall of Kabul, but there is still reportedly a backlog of 40,000 visa applicants, many of whom have been waiting for six months for a decision.
On top of that is the speed with which the Biden administration granted Ukrainians Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which prevents migrants from deportation for a certain period. Ukrainians were designated TPS only a month after Russian began its military operation, while Afghans waited seven months after the US withdrawal.
"People in Afghanistan, Yemen, and other parts of the world where the US has waged a war of choice and/or assisted other countries in their invasions, blockades and airstrikes have every right to lament the terrible double standard being played out, in real time, in their very real lives," Voices for Creative Nonviolence Co-Coordinator Kathy Kelly told Sputnik.
Ukrainian refugees, she added, will probably enter the US more swiftly than Afghans who were already facing wait times of 18 to 45 months.
Kelly, a three-time Nobel peace prize nominee, also said she told refugees that the countries least likely to offer them visas are the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK.
Different Experiences at US Southern Border
More than 4.7 million refugees have fled Ukraine due to the conflict, but a majority went to neighboring countries like Poland, Romania, Russia, Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia, and Belarus, according to data from the UN Refugee Agency.
Some 10,000 Ukrainians who made their way to the United States on their own have faced much different circumstances and conditions than those fleeing other crises. For example, thousands of Afghan refugees, after a chaotic evacuation process, were kept at military facilities while the US worked on getting them resettled.
Moreover, refugees from Central America and Mexico have recently faced especially harsh treatment on the US southern border. The Trump administration separated migrant parents from their children under the so-called zero-tolerance policy while many other migrant adults were kept in crowded holding facilities without adequate food, water, and medical supplies, according to immigration rights groups.
Central American migrants wait to be transported by the U.S. Border Patrol after crossing the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico in La Joya, Texas, U.S. April 27, 2021.
© REUTERS / GO NAKAMURA
Ruben Garcia, Executive Director of the Annunciation House, a leading organisation sheltering migrants in El Paso, Texas, told Sputnik Ukrainian refugees appear to have more support in the US than other migrants.
"What I can tell you is they're well-connected… so when they cross over they've already been in touch with family," Garcia said. "Some people get picked up right there at the port of entry and they go to the airport and they're on their way."
And Ukrainians who are not connected may want to think twice about heading to the US southern border, as one refugee who is married to an American told Sputnik. Anastasia, a young refugee from Kharkiv who recently crossed into the United States from Tijuana, Mexico, warned her fellow Ukrainians not to come to the southern border without contacts in the US.
In early February, when she suspected a conflict in Ukraine was imminent, she made the decision to leave Kharkov and head to Mexico. She reached the US-Mexico border on 18 March, accompanied by her husband.
At the San Ysidro US port of entry, US immigration officers allowed Anastasia to come into the United States to seek asylum and travel to San Francisco with her husband while she goes through immigration proceedings.
Different Attitudes Globally
The US public and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle appear more united to support the resettlement of Ukrainian refugees than other migrants. Some US politicians refused to accept Afghan refugees for fear that a poor vetting process would let terrorists slip through the cracks.
Conservative Americans and Republican US lawmakers have publicly called for stricter border policies to prevent entry to Central American asylum-seeking migrants, who are fleeing conflicts, gangs, and poverty.
But the problem is not relegated to the United States as World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus underscored last week by complaining that crises in Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Syria have received only a "fraction" of the concern shown for Ukraine.
Afghan refugees walk to a bus taking them to a processing center upon arrival at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, U.S., August 28, 2021
© REUTERS / MICHAEL MCCOY
Ghebreyesus even questioned whether the world "really gives equal attention to Black and white lives".
The US and international media have also come under fire for showing preferential treatment to Ukrainians versus the rest of the 84 million the UN said have been displaced by conflict worldwide.
"Certainly, the US mainstream media has built tremendous empathy for Ukraine refugees and for those who've been bereaved, orphaned, maimed and displaced," Kelly said. "This kind of coverage should be 'the norm'. Every war should be covered with this level of attention and concern".