U.S. to welcome 100,000 Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russia's invasion

President Biden on Thursday announced that the United States plans to welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees and others fleeing the Russian invasion.

The plan comes amid growing calls from advocates for the Biden administration to do far more to shoulder the responsibility for the millions of people fleeing war-torn Ukraine.

“This is not something that Poland or Romania or Germany should carry on their own,” Biden said at a press conference in Brussels, where he met with NATO leaders Thursday. “This is an international responsibility.”

More than 3.6 million people have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, according to United Nations data. The massive surge of people has created a challenge for all the countries housing them, particularly Poland, which has taken in more than 2.1 million Ukrainians. The U.S. has provided nearly $293 million in humanitarian assistance both inside Ukraine and in the region since late February, according to the State Department. In addition, the administration announced Thursday it was prepared to provide more than $1 billion in new funding toward humanitarian assistance, as well as an additional $320 million in democracy and human rights funding to Ukraine and its neighbors. This step will further support these countries, which are becoming overwhelmed by the sudden exodus of refugees.

According to NBC News, the administration is planning to reveal specific details of the plan in the coming weeks, but it's expected to use a number of pathways to admit Ukrainians into the country, including through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, both immigrant and non-immigrant visas, and others. The plan is also expected to focus on clearing the way for Ukrainians who already have family living in the U.S.

One of the country’s largest refugee resettlement agencies, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, has resettled a quarter of the 20,000 Ukrainian refugees who have come to the United States since 2012. Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the organization's president and CEO, said in a statement: “We commend the Biden administration for its plan to protect Ukrainians seeking safety, the overwhelming majority of whom are women and children.”

“While many may wish to remain close to Ukraine, the sheer scale of displacement requires a coordinated global effort in which every able country pulls its weight,” said Vignarajah. “Welcoming 100,000 Ukrainians would be an important recognition that the United States must play both a supporting and leading role in providing refuge.”

The Biden administration has been under pressure from advocates as well as members of Congress to step up efforts to address the growing refugee crisis in Ukraine. On Wednesday, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, urging them to “accelerate plans for the resettlement of Ukrainian refugees to the United States and to expeditiously create a robust humanitarian parole program for all eligible Ukrainians fleeing Putin’s illegal and unprovoked attacks.”

Although administration officials have repeatedly emphasized that most people fleeing Ukraine are likely to prefer to remain in the region in the hope that they will eventually be able to return home, large numbers of Ukrainians have already begun making their way to the U.S.-Mexico border to request asylum.

According to an intelligence alert produced over the weekend by U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Intelligence, in the first two weeks of March alone, CBP officers at the southwest border had already encountered more Ukrainian nationals than during the past two fiscal years combined. Based on preliminary CBP enforcement data, the alert projects that CBP could encounter nearly 2,000 Ukrainian nationals on the southwest border during the month of March. That figure would be a 450% increase over the previous monthly high of 358 in December 2021, the alert says.

Yahoo News obtained the CBP alert, which was marked “unclassified” and “law enforcement sensitive.” Interviews with Ukrainians encountered along the southwest border indicate that they fled Ukraine because of the Russian invasion, according to the alert. It also predicts that the ongoing conflict in that country will continue to result in “higher than normal” numbers of Ukrainian nationals arriving at the southwest border throughout the fiscal year, if not longer.

The Biden administration continues to expel most asylum seekers arriving at the southern border under Title 42, the controversial pandemic-era public health authority begun under President Donald Trump that has allowed immigration officials to quickly return hundreds of thousands of migrants to their home countries.

Earlier this month, following reports that Ukrainian families were also being denied entry to the U.S. under Title 42, DHS issued guidance to CBP officers reminding them of the authority to grant individual exceptions to the policy on a case-by-case basis, which can be applied to Ukrainians seeking refuge at the border. While advocates have generally welcomed all efforts by the Biden administration to allow Ukrainian refugees into the country, some argue that recent Title 42 exemptions given to Ukrainians highlight the reasons why the policy should be rescinded altogether.

“Anyone who cannot safely return to their home country should be afforded the opportunity to seek protection … whether the press is watching or not,” Blaine Bookey, legal director at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, said on a call with reporters last week. Bookey was in Tijuana helping Haitian families trying to request asylum when she encountered one of the Ukrainian families who’d attracted media attention after initially being turned away by U.S. border officials. Bookey provided the family with legal assistance, and CBP ultimately granted their request for a humanitarian exception to Title 42.

“But this was an extraordinary case,” Bookey insisted, noting that most of her clients fleeing harm in other countries are not so lucky. “People seeking safety, whether they come from Haiti, Ukraine, Cameroon or El Salvador, deserve better.”

Jana Winter contributed reporting to this story.