by Artem Marchuk needed to escape from Ukraine or die. He saw no other options.
He, his wife and children had been living in Bakhmut, the site of the deadliest battle of the war. Even when they managed to get out of the city, nothing in Ukraine seemed safe.
“My children were very hungry,” Artem’s wife, Yana, said in an interview from the family’s home in Baltimore, where the U.S. government resettled them in 2022. “There was darkness everywhere.”
The Marchuks are among more than a million people the Biden administration has allowed into the United States over the past three years under an authority called humanitarian parole, which allows people without visas to live and work in the United States temporarily. Parole has been extended to Ukrainians, Afghans and thousands of people south of the US-Mexico border fleeing poverty and war.
Now the program is at the center of a battle in Congress over legislation that would unlock billions of dollars in military aid for some of President Biden’s top foreign policy priorities, such as Ukraine and Israel.
Republicans want to see a tough crackdown on immigration in exchange for their votes to approve military aid, and restricting the number of people granted parole is one of their demands.
For Marchuk, the fact that a program that saved his family has become a bargaining chip on Capitol Hill seems wrong. Although the latest version of the agreement would mostly avoid Ukrainians seeking parole, he feels a deep sense of solidarity with others – regardless of nationality – who could be left behind if Congress imposes limits on the program.
Americans, he said, should welcome people like their family. Marchuk, a former technology executive in Ukraine, said he has found work as a driver for DoorDash, UPS and Amazon since he arrived in Baltimore.
“Refugees deliver these packages,” said Marchuk, 36. “U.S. citizens who are educated,” she said, very often do not want to work as drivers.
What is humanitarian parole?
Humanitarian parole has been around since the 1950s to help vulnerable people fleeing failed states and conflicts, but Biden has used it more than his predecessors, immigration experts say. By law, the United States can grant parole if there are “urgent humanitarian needs” or a “significant public benefit” to doing so.
People who want to enter the country on parole must first have a sponsor in the United States and then undergo a background investigation by U.S. immigration authorities.
There are important differences between parole and the United States refugee program, which is the most typical path for people seeking refuge in the United States.
People who have parole status are not on the path to a green card or permanent residence, as refugees are. Instead, they are allowed to stay only for a limited time, usually about two years, although the administration can extend this.
Once status expires, individuals must leave the United States, apply for another immigration program, or risk remaining in the country illegally.
A political bargaining chip.
The Biden administration has made parole a key part of its immigration policy, using it to help people from Ukraine and Afghanistan, as well as people from Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, whose economies have virtually collapsed.
More than 176,000 Ukrainians and 77,000 Afghans have arrived in the United States under the program. And last year, the Biden administration began granting parole to 30,000 immigrants a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who have financial sponsors in the United States. The White House argued that its strategy was designed to deter immigrants from crossing the border illegally by creating a legal and more orderly path.
Republicans have tried to limit almost all of those programs, saying Biden is taking advantage of an authority that is supposed to be used only in extraordinary circumstances.
“They have abused the statute tremendously,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said this month. “I don’t have any confidence that we would have accomplished much if we didn’t limit the use of probation.”
Some Republicans say parole often amounts to a loophole that fuels illegal immigration. They want to crack down on a practice known as “catch and release,” in which immigrants are briefly detained when they arrive in the United States, but then quickly granted parole and left to await court hearings. immigration.
The details of the agreement in Congress are still being negotiated. An agreement being discussed in the Senate seeks to reduce the number of people on parole by tightening immigration enforcement at the southern border.
This would not have a direct impact on the route that many Ukrainians took to the United States, since they generally do not arrive via the southern border. (some ukrainians get to the United States that way, though.)
But there is still deep uncertainty about whether the program will survive without changes.
Even some congressional Democrats who oppose substantially changing the parole program have acknowledged that they may have to give in to some Republican demands to limit the program if they have any chance of passing the military aid package.
House Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson, have threatened to block any deal that does not impose a strict limit on the number of immigrants eligible for parole, as well as the elimination of group parole, such as the program for Ukrainians that The Marchuks used to enter the United States.
Marchuk, who is closely following the negotiations in Congress, said he feels pulled in two directions. He sees the probation program as a lifeline for desperate families. But he desperately wants Congress to also provide military aid to Ukraine.
He said it could be the only hope for his sister, who is on the front lines in Ukraine, to survive the war.
“They’re talking about lives.”
As lawmakers debate the merits of the parole program, some immigrants in the United States say all the political discourse glosses over calamities in their home countries.
“People are dying left and right, being kidnapped and it’s just impossible,” said Valerie Laveus, who came to the United States from Haiti almost 20 years ago and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2008. “I’m worried because I feel like a lot of people sometimes These people have these conversations and forget about the human factor. “They forget that they are talking about lives.”
Laveus said his brother, Reginald Daniel, waited years to get a U.S. visa but got caught up in the growing backlog. He knew he had to help him flee, particularly after he began suffering seizures due to brain swelling from a gunshot wound to the head.
When Biden announced early last year that Haitians would be eligible for parole, Laveus immediately submitted paperwork to prove he could financially support his brother and son for two years.
“When my brother arrived, he was skin and bones,” Laveus said. “If I took a photo of what it looked like and gave you a photo of what it looks like now, you would see the amazing difference.”
Mr. Daniel is now training to work in security and his son attended a military academy in Florida. While Laveus is optimistic for her brother and nephew, she is also “very wary and concerned” about what the conversations in Congress could mean for her opportunity to apply for future immigration status.
Biden allies say restricting the use of probation would likely be counterproductive.
“It means that people in desperate circumstances, who need protection, who need to leave, who need to flee, their options will be more limited, which increases the likelihood that they will choose the dangerous option of coming to the border,” Cecilia Muñoz said. one of Biden’s top immigration officials during the transition and co-chairman of Welcome.US, an organization that helps Americans sponsor refugee resettlement in the United States.
Karoun Demirjian contributed reporting from Washington.
