Tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees in US face loss of legal protections this week

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees in the United States are set to lose their legal protections starting August 15 unless the Trump administration intervenes, leaving them at risk of arrest and deportation.

An estimated 120,000 Ukrainians who fled to the US over the past two years will begin losing their humanitarian protections on a rolling basis, Caliber.Az reports via US media.

These individuals entered the country through Uniting for Ukraine, an emergency program created by the Biden administration to provide a faster pathway for relocation than the traditional US refugee system, which can take years. Participants in the program were granted two-year, renewable humanitarian parole, contingent on securing a private American sponsor willing to host them.

The program allowed quick entry but offered only temporary status, creating the risk that once it expired, beneficiaries would be left without legal protection. The government already has the home addresses of participants, meaning those without renewed status could be located and detained easily.

When President Trump took office, he shut down Uniting for Ukraine and stopped issuing renewals for participants whose work permits were running out. In total, about 250,000 Ukrainians came to the US under the program. Those who arrived before August 16, 2023, remain protected under a separate mechanism—temporary protected status (TPS). However, the roughly 120,000 who arrived on that date or later will immediately be in the country illegally once their humanitarian parole expires.

Earlier this summer, Trump suggested he might allow Ukrainians to remain until the end of the war. “We have a lot of people that came in from Ukraine, and we’re working with them,” he told reporters. On Friday, he is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, where the war in Ukraine is expected to be among the topics discussed.

Humanitarian advocates warn that the end of protections will leave many in desperate circumstances. Vera Serova, a volunteer lawyer with the nonprofit Nova Ukraine, said, “People either have nowhere to go or not enough money to leave and start over in yet another new country.”

For Myroslava Voitsekh, 44, who arrived with her four-year-old son Oleksandr in September 2023, the deadline is looming. Their humanitarian-parole status expires September 2. Facing the possibility of being forced to leave, she described her situation starkly: “It’s a choice between fear there and fear here. We have only fear ahead.”