About 100 Ukrainians are being allowed into the United States every day.
Tijuana:
Hundreds of Ukrainians are camping in the border city of Tijuana, Mexico, hoping to seek American asylum, days after the Biden administration said the United States would accept up to 100,000 Ukrainians fleeing the war, a dramatic increase in arrivals. Hui.
Many Ukrainians who survived Russian invasion of their home country have moved to the US-Mexico border, hoping officials will allow them to be reunited with American relatives or friends.
People straddle blankets and lawn chairs with over-stuffed suitcases on a patch of grass near the international entry port. Some are sleeping in tents and under tents. American volunteers in neon vests – some Ukrainian-Americans who went to Tijuana after hearing about the refugees arriving – are collecting names on a handwritten waiting list to keep track of arrivals.
Tijuana’s director of migration affairs Enrique Lucero, citing a list kept by volunteers, said that while some 600 Ukrainians are camping near the border entrance, about 500 more are staying in hotels in the city. He said that about 40% of the people are children.
Lucero said about 100 Ukrainians are being allowed into the United States every day. US Customs and Border Protection said data on the number of Ukrainians who entered the US in March would be available in the coming weeks.
People on the southwest border are still small compared to the more than 3.8 million Ukrainians who fled to nearby countries in Europe since the February 24 invasion, which the Russian government calls a “special military operation”.
In response to the exodus – the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II – US President Joe Biden last week pledged to accept some 100,000 Ukrainians into the United States through various legal avenues.
But after being denied US visas or told to wait at US embassies abroad, some families have begun traveling to the southern border through countries desperate to leave.
Julia Neusner, an attorney with the New York-based non-profit advocacy group Human Rights First, said that while Ukrainians and Russians have been arriving at the US-Mexico border since before the conflict began, people are arriving “very quickly.”
Neusner said that on average, Ukrainians wait about a day from the time they are put on a list compiled by volunteers until they can cross into the United States.
Two weeks ago, according to a Reuters witness, about 15 Ukrainians per day were arriving at the Tijuana border and passing through immediately.
Russians, other expatriates left behind
While Ukrainians are being deported into the United States, US border agents have asked Russians, Mexicans, Central Americans and migrants from other countries to stay, citing a pandemic-era border removal policy as Title 42. Known in the U.S. that closed the US-Mexico border to most asylum seekers.
On Friday, the Biden administration announced it would end the eviction policy at the end of May after US health officials said it was no longer needed to protect public health.
Inna Levian, 42 – originally from Belarus – said she and other Russian-speaking members of her mothers’ group in Orange County, Calif., went to Tijuana earlier this week to help Ukrainian refugees, many of whom speak Russian.
He said there is no water at the local bus stop where some women and children are sleeping and children are falling ill.
“Vomiting, diarrhea, they’re so stressed out, they’re dehydrated,” she said. “There’s this unrest in them.”
A six-year-old girl told Levin that she was praying for the protection of her father who had been left behind to defend Ukraine because it was her “job” to be his “guardian angel”.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)