Biden’s administration is working on a plan of the accelerated resettlement of some vulnerable groups of Ukrainians, who are running from the war, started by Russia.
NBC News informed, that applications of activists, journalists, and those who are part of the LGBTQ community, can be considered fast. The plan would also expedite the reunification of Ukrainians with U.S.-based family members. According to the American TV channel, the White House is still determining the plan implementation format. It can be, for instance, similar to the Priority-2 designation program, which has been used during the Afghanistan crisis. This category included the Afghans who were helping the U.S., but were not entitled to obtain special immigration visas: personnel and interpreters, working at the U.S. government institutions and armed forces in Afghanistan (both contracted and hired); local employees of the U.S. media, and members of the American projects. That is all who were under the threat of being declared as “enemy” because of such collaboration.
President Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki said, that the internal discussions are ongoing at the White House on what else could be done for the refugees.
At the same time, many humanitarian organizations call Biden’s administration to provide full protection for Ukrainians, so they could live and work in the USA. To do that, the refugees are to get state assistance, which is not anticipated by Priority-2.
“Overall we’ve been urging that they not bring in refugees the way they brought the Afghans in. They should bring in Ukrainians the way they brought in Kosovars from Macedonia in 1999 — finalizing the refugee adjudication after they get to the U.S., to ensure they have all the protections to which they would be entitled as refugees.,” said Mark Hetfield, the Head of Jewish American humanitarian organization HIAS.