People are also fleeing Russia’s war against Ukraine to the United States. Refugees experience help, but also fraud and violence.
When Russia launched its full-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Anna* was six months pregnant. She wanted to go as far away as possible and chose the USA.
The US authorities launched the United for Ukraine humanitarian program just two months after the invasion began. According to this, refugees from Ukraine are allowed to enter the USA and stay for two years if they find a so-called sponsor – a person living there who is willing to offer housing and financial support. In the first 12 months, about 130,000 Ukrainians have come to the United States through the program.
Like tens of thousands from Ukraine, Anna also posted a request in one of the many groups that appeared on Internet platforms where Ukrainians are looking for host families. A few days later she received a message from a family in Tennessee.
Exploited for “fundraisers”
When the pregnant Ukrainian arrived at her host family, she found herself in an unexpectedly difficult situation. Her sponsors have long refused to help her with her welfare applications. When she finally received payments, the family told her how to spend it. Instead of driving her to the gynecologist, they insisted on a home birth.
Almost every day she was supposed to tell people about her fate in another church: “I found it uncomfortable to arouse pity and to appear as a martyr,” says Anna, who also hardly speaks English. Apparently it was about raising money to renovate an abandoned property in which the sponsors said they wanted to accommodate up to 20 Ukrainian refugees.
Activists find a women’s shelter
According to posts on their Facebook page, the family had run a crowdfunding campaign seven years earlier to “preserve the historical legacy.” Now the family had started a new campaign, this time under the motto: “Help Ukrainian refugees find a home in Tennessee.”
Anna herself also helped with the renovation: “They simply gave me tools and said that today we would paint the walls or clean the windows,” says Anna. She didn’t dare refuse to work – on the one hand out of gratitude, on the other hand because of the complete dependence on the sponsors.
However, the relationship between Anna and the family continued to deteriorate. When her sponsors moved her to the incompletely renovated property with no working toilet or hot water, Anna says she packed up and fled to California, with the help of volunteers, to a home for women with children. Through the new home, Anna found the organization “Nova Ukraine”, which supports Ukrainians affected by the war.
DW has not contacted Anna’s sponsors because the young mother fears they might want to harm her.
Great willingness to help in the USA
Experiences like Anna’s are certainly the exception, but she’s not alone. Another Ukrainian named Xenia, who also found her sponsor in the US – a Ukrainian woman of the same age – through Facebook, found herself on the street a month later with her two-year-old daughter Miriam. The argument with her hostess came after Xenia saw a scene of violence against her daughter.
The willingness in American society to help refugee Ukrainians is great, says the coordinator of Nova Ukraine, Katya Moiseeva. Many Americans volunteered to be sponsors out of good intentions. Unfortunately, sometimes it turns out that some of them have underestimated the responsibility and are not able to bear it. This would create conflicts and the refugees would have to look for a new place to stay. More than 1,200 people, mostly women with children, asked the activists of “Nova Ukraine” last year for help in finding accommodation. Every tenth woman has previously been confronted with some form of violence, says Moiseeva.
Fraud, abuse, prostitution
There are also cases of abuse and fraud. For example, some Ukrainians, mostly wealthy ones, have agreed to pay an upfront payment of $2,000 or $3,000 per person in return for US citizens or residents vouching for them. After the transfer, the “sponsors” never showed up again. Others should commit themselves to being available as cheap labour, usually in the household or caring for people.
The DW editors posted a bogus ad by a young Ukrainian woman who is said to be looking for a sponsor in various forums dedicated to the “Uniting for Ukraine” program. Job offers as escort ladies soon came in almost a dozen groups. It was promised: “We will make living space available and arrange sponsors.” In further communication, however, it turned out that it was not about an escort service, but about prostitution.
US authorities in a dilemma
Martin Muscheid, organizer of one of the groups in which sponsors are sought and found, told DW that he regularly deletes ads from third-country nationals, often Nigerians. They would promise Ukrainian women to find sponsors in the US if the women would take them there as their life partners. Because: People who are in a relationship with a Ukrainian are also allowed to enter the USA as part of the humanitarian program.
US immigration authorities claim every sponsor is screened before papers are approved. It is unclear how many Ukrainian refugees in the USA have been subjected to violence and violations of the law. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the central national immigration and foreigners authority in the United States, did not answer a corresponding DW request.
The current regulations on the recognition of sponsors pose a dilemma for the US authorities, say the activists from Nova Ukraine: On the one hand, the state does not want to tighten the conditions of the program so that Americans continue to invite Ukrainians to stay. On the other hand, cases of fraud, intimidation and violence against refugees showed that more controls were needed.
* Name changed by editors
Adaptation from the Russian: Markian Ostapchuk
Author: Tatjana Schweizer
