Sun. March 23, 2025
To the Office of Congressman Byron Donalds:
I am writing to speak out against the senseless heavy-handedness of the US government in its cruel machination against vulnerable refugees of war by threatening to dismantle the United for Ukraine (U4U) humanitarian parole program. The current administration has zero rational legislative intent to rip the humanitarian parole status from already vulnerable people. Such act not only generates a huge fiscal wastage in the US government by triggering USCIS to process hundreds of thousands of new TPS applications just for these parolees to attempt to switch status, but it also thrusts upon struggling war refugees the undue burden to hire a lawyer to navigate the TPS application process, which is nonsensical amid the US admin’s suspension of any new applications. In other words, Ukraine’s war refugees not only will face sudden unauthorized status in the country, but they are now being advised by the government to pay costs to lawyers and the government to apply for a process that they have been barred from. As a U4U sponsor to a young Ukrainian couple, I can speak for our people that the dissolution of humanitarian parole status is an absolutely needless and unjust move which only serves to spur waste, corruption, and the systemic predation of our people. In 2023, Congressman Byron Donalds’ office helped me file an urgent congressional inquiry on this couple’s behalf to prevent them from being separated as they traveled through refugee camps throughout Europe into America. I am very grateful to the Congressman. But, if our friends are forced to return to Ukraine before hostilities cease, the military aged man we helped to bring here will have to prepare to be mobilized to go to war. The suspension of U4U is a legitimate national security concern. I implore my Congressmen to work together with the US cabinet to protect the current authorized status of vulnerable refugees of the war in Ukraine. One way you can do this is by supporting Senator Durbin’s bill that seeks to provide temporary guest status to Ukrainians who are already in the United States through the Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) program, enabling them to stay and work in the U.S. until the Secretary of State determines that hostilities in Ukraine have ceased and it is safe for them to return. Our wounds are still fresh and our people’s suffering continues as russia’s full scale invasion in Ukraine rages onto its third year. It is important that the US government continues to stand with our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, both civilian and military. We need you now more than ever. Let us never burn a bridge that may alleviate the burden of war.
Sincerely,
Alexandra Zakhvatayev
Southwest Florida
Cc: Sen. Rick Scott, Sen. Ashley Moody, Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, US National Security Advisor Mike Walz
See also: "Don’t link humanitarian parole programs with border security", Cape Coral Breeze, Nov 21, 2023
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