The United States has long stood as a beacon of freedom, offering sanctuary to those fleeing oppression and war. As Russia continues its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, millions of displaced Ukrainians remain unable to return home safely. 

Effective January 28, 2025, the U.S. has paused acceptance of new applications for the Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) program, and the administration is considering permanently discontinuing it. An executive order of January 20, 2025, notes that parole will be granted only on a case by case basis requiring demonstration of “urgent humanitarian reasons or a significant public benefit.”  The Ukraine Immigration Task Force notes that “no new travel authorizations will be issued” unless the program resumes. Prospects of visa extensions for existing recipients are uncertain.

Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine indeed poses “urgent humanitarian reasons” for refugee parole. As of November 2022, over half (52%) of Ukrainian refugees abroad were children and the vast majority of adult refugees (83.4%) were women. Less than 10% of inhabitants of each region of Western Ukraine left the country, compared to 15-25% of those in frontline regions. These patterns are consistent with legitimate humanitarian needs.

In early 2024, an estimated 6 million of the 6.5 million Ukrainian refugees worldwide had arrived in other European countries.  Between March 2022 and April 2024, 298,128 Ukrainians arrived in Canada. As of January 2024, over 178,000 Ukrainians had entered the United States through the Uniting for Ukraine program, and 319,000 were processed into the U.S. by other means, for a total of nearly 500,000 Ukrainians since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.  These figures reflect that some Ukrainians who initially arrived in other European nations subsequently traveled to North America. Proportional to population, the U.S. share of Ukrainian refugees is only about one-eighth that of Europe and Canada.

Out of Order

In May 2023, Donald Trump promised to stop Russia’s war against Ukraine “within 24 hours” of becoming president.  In June 2024, he told a rally that he could end the war before taking office. These promises have not yet materialized. We wish the administration well in its efforts to facilitate a just and lasting peace. The form of such efforts, and their success or failure, remains to be seen. The suspension of humanitarian parole and assistance is premature while Russia’s war against Ukraine continues at full intensity with targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure.

We ask the Administration to follow through on its promises to end the war in a manner protecting Ukraine’s sovereignty under international law, and with enforceable security guarantees to procure lasting peace, before curtailing humanitarian parole and assistance to Ukrainian refugees.

Ukrainian refugees are overwhelmingly law-abiding and respectful of the traditions and culture of the United States. Despite the ongoing war, they have had one of the highest rates of refugee return. By December 2023, some 4.5 million Ukrainian refugees had returned home. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that of all refugees worldwide in 2023, four out of five who returned home were Ukrainian or South Sudanese.

Many Ukrainians are eager to return home when conditions allow. Yet the voluntary return of refugees who are able to set suitable conditions is very different from involuntary return through revocation of parole status or forced repatriation.

Benefits of Ukrainian Migrants to the U.S.

The policy shift blocking humanitarian parole for new Ukrainian migrants is not only a humanitarian failure, but a strategic and economic mistake. The entry of Ukrainian migrants aligns with U.S. economic and national security interests.

Research by the Centre for Economic Policy Research notes significant medium and long-term economic benefits to host countries from Ukrainian migrants. A February 2024 report of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that refugees contribute substantially more to tax revenues than the cost of government services provided. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that “labour market integration of Ukrainian refugees has been faster compared to other refugee groups.”

Many Ukrainians are highly skilled professionals in STEM, healthcare, and construction—sectors facing shortages in the U.S.  In May 2023, 63% of adult Ukrainian refugees had a complete or incomplete higher education and 24% had professional education.

The war in Ukraine is not an isolated conflict. It is a direct challenge to the rules-based global order and to international U.S. leadership and credibility. Russia’s aggression threatens European stability, emboldens authoritarian regimes, and undermines international law.

By supporting Ukrainian migrants, the U.S. upholds its commitment to democracy and human rights.

Ukrainian refugees fill critical labor shortages, contributing to the U.S. economy.  Supporting Ukraine weakens Russia’s geopolitical leverage, strengthening U.S. national security.

Disrupted Childhood and Learning Losses

As of February 2023, an estimated 22.5% of Ukrainian children under age five experienced growth stunting from malnutrition and 17.7% of women of reproductive age experienced anemia.  61% of parents cited increased stress in their children, as well as anxiety and loneliness. The building of normal peer relationships, exploration of the world, and developmental needs of childhood have been significantly disrupted by war. Many children have experienced more severe psychological trauma.

In the United States, remote learning during the Covid-19 pandemic was associated with major learning losses. Management firm McKinley calculates that among the educational impacts, students fell an average of five months behind in math and four months behind in reading during the 2020-2021 school year. Learning losses were even greater in Black-majority schools (six months) and seven months in low-income schools. Educational nonprofit The 74 Million writes that by the end of the pandemic, eighth graders were a full school year behind pre-pandemic math and reading levels.

Learning losses in Ukraine are far greater. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, followed on the tail of the Covid-19 pandemic. Within a month of the full-scale invasion, over half of Ukrainian children were displaced, with 40% relocating abroad. By May 2022, Russia had already shelled more than a thousand schools. As of January 2023, 1,259 schools were damaged and 223 schools had been completely destroyed. By October 2023, 2,638 schools had been damaged and 437 schools were destroyed.

Because of Russia’s bombing of Ukrainian schools and civilian infrastructure, students could not safely gather for in-person learning. The NGO Centre for Society Research reports that a year into the full-scale invasion, 36% of Ukrainian schools conducted only remote learning and 36% alternated between in-person and remote.

Systematic Russian destruction of over 80% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has resulted in widespread blackouts and lack of heating and air conditioning. When available, electricity is rationed. The lack of electricity and other basic services pose severe educational disruptions. In-person learning, when it occurs, is frequently disrupted by air raid sirens. To date, the full-scale war has disrupted four school years (2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25) with no end in sight.

Higher Education

Learning losses have not been confined to school-age children. University students, teachers, and support personnel have experienced severe disruptions. Many higher educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed. State funding of higher education was slashed 40% in 2023.

The number graduating from Ukrainian universities fell from 640,000 in 2008 to 360,000 in 2023. University enrollment has dropped precipitously, with many young men conscripted into the army, other young adults moving abroad, and still others abandoning education to pursue support roles. By October 2023, sixty higher educational institutions had been damaged and six completely destroyed. Where universities continue to operate, they have altered their schedules with reduced in-person learning. The Ukrainian government plans to close 50 of the nation’s 151 public universities by 2030.  Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city and a center of education, is near the Russian border and  exposed to constant attacks.

Damaged Health, Declining Life Expectancy

Ukrainian adults have experienced disruption of all spheres of life, including economic, social, educational, and others. The flight of $35 billion in capital abroad has precipitated economic collapse, contributing in turn to stress, environmental exposure, and malnutrition.  

Russia's genocide against Ukraine involves not only direct physical trauma, but disruption of society and infrastructure, drastically reducing births and precipitating early death. In 2024, Ukraine had both the lowest birth rate and the highest death rate in the world. The physiologic effects of war, arising from both environmental conditions and stress, have been found to accelerate aging by up to 18 years in the most affected individuals. Medical research has found that chronic stress from war results in changes to the body’s cellular processes, or time stress contributes to shortening of telomeres, repetitive DNA sequences on the end of chromosomes correlated with longevity. Telomere loss is associated with premature aging and early death.

Destruction of Communities and Culture

It is unclear in many cases what returning “home” would look like for Ukrainian refugees. In our community, we have Ukrainians from Bakhmut, which was reduced to rubble. We have families from Mariupol, where an estimated tens of thousands of civilians were killed during Russia’s siege. Many others have come from cities and towns that no longer exist, having been razed by Russian assaults with destruction of vital infrastructure and civilian buildings.

Russia’s war has attempted to erase Ukrainian identity through destruction of the nation’s cultural sites, schools, museum, churches, and homes.  Russia has systematically attempted to eradicate Ukrainian language and culture in occupied territories. To irreversibly alter the ethnic makeup of occupied territories, Russia imported over 100,000 Central Asians into occupied areas of Ukraine by December 2023 as well as ethnic Russians. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been deported to Russia. Many who have expressed even slight loyalty to the Ukrainian state have been executed at concentration camps called filtration centers.

Hundreds of Ukrainians were found in mass graves in Bucha and Izium, some killed during Russian attacks and others tortured and executed by the occupiers. Reports indicate far more extensive atrocities in Mariupol and occupied territories still under Russian control.

Repeating the Past?

The United States’ refusal to accept further Ukrainian refugees, and the threat of revoking or failing to renew humanitarian parole for existing refugees, raises the spectre of some of its most destructive and disgraceful past betrayals of human rights.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill surrendered all of Eastern Europe to Stalin under empty promises of democratic elections.  The nature of the Soviet regime was well-known, from the Holodomor genocide of Ukrainians to the extermination of various “undesirable” groups, from kulaks to clergy to ethnic minorities. Yet Roosevelt and Churchill, who clearly knew better, pushed a fantasy of Stalin’s USSR as a responsible international actor. During the war, official U.S. government propaganda designated the Soviet Union “our democratic ally” and whitewashed or covered up its atrocities. The USSR immediately imposed communist puppet regimes and brutally suppressed dissent in each occupied nation.

The principle of national self-determination, enshrined in the League of Nations and used to break up the Austrian Empire after the First World War, was ignored in regard to Soviet imperialism. The map of Eastern Europe was redrawn to legitimize the duplicity Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, with subject peoples denied representation in determining the fate of their own countries. The West turned a blind eye to widespread ethnic cleansing and mass deportations in the aftermath of the war. Western leaders who had facilitated the loss of freedom of more than a hundred million Eastern Europeans experienced no accountability and paid no price for being wrong.

The duplicity went beyond the betrayal of those living in Eastern Europe countries in 1945. It also included the forced repatriation of millions, especially Ukrainians, living in the West.  Many had fought on the side of the allies against the Nazis. The forcibly repatriated include many from territories of Western Ukraine who had never pertained to the Soviet Union before the joint Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939.

Of Ukrainians forcibly repatriated either by the Soviet Army or Western allies, approximately 300,000 were executed and 2.5 million were deported to labor camps.  Some, knowing they would be tortured and murdered by the Soviets, committed suicide rather than return. Like many victims of the Holocaust, even the names and identities of many victims of forced repatriation are unknown. Among various topical works, Nikolai Tolstoy’s book Victims of Yalta: The Secret Betrayal of the Allies provides meticulous documentation from careful research.

Forced repatriation harmed not only its direct victims. With only a small fraction of Ukrainians remaining in the West, these nations were deprived of the immigrant community’s knowledge and understanding. Many powerful voices of freedom were silenced. The forced repatriation of much of the Ukrainian population facilitated a relative vacuum of Western competency and insight toward the Soviet Union and Russia which has persisted for decades.

Response to Objections

Some object to accepting Ukrainian refugees over concerns of the cost of continued refugee assistance or the long-term feasibility of U.S. support. Data shows that Ukrainian refugees are an economic asset to the United States, not a burden. Ukrainian migrants abundantly enrich Western societies with skills, knowledge, and insight.

Others claim that domestic U.S. interests should be addressed before accepting migrants. Supporting Ukrainian refugees and addressing domestic concerns are not mutually exclusive. In fact, integrating skilled refugees strengthens the U.S. workforce and economy, benefiting American taxpayers.

Critics question why America should take the lead, claiming that Europe should handle the Ukraine crisis.  Europe has already taken in approximately eight times more Ukrainian refugees than the U.S. America's global leadership depends on shared responsibility. If the U.S. withdraws, it undermines its credibility in global conflicts, including with China.

Conclusion

Supporting Ukrainian refugees is not just a moral choice, but a strategic necessity. It strengthens U.S. economic growth, reinforces national security, and preserves America’s global leadership. We call on elected leaders to act decisively to ensure that the U.S. remains a defender of democracy, human dignity, and international stability.

We urge the reinstatement and extension of humanitarian parole for Ukrainian refugees. Doing so aligns with America’s core values, economic interests, and long-term foreign policy objectives. Most Ukrainian refugees want to return home. Historically, Ukrainians have one of the highest refugee return rates worldwide. However, forcing them back prematurely risks destabilizing Ukraine further and rewarding Russian aggression.

America has faced similar choices before. After World War II, the U.S. failed to protect millions of Eastern Europeans from Soviet oppression, forcing many to return to near-certain imprisonment or death. That betrayal remains one of the darkest stains on U.S. foreign policy. We must not repeat this mistake by abandoning Ukrainians today.

Acknowledgments: Special thanks to Andrew Wells and other American Coalition for Ukraine alumni for providing feedback, suggestions, and edits.