Trump administration accidentally tells some Ukrainians to leave country
The Trump administration mistakenly sent an urgent notice this week to some Ukrainians who fled the Russian invasion saying it was terminating their provisional legal status in seven days and ordering them to leave the United States “immediately,” frightening immigrants and advocates across the country.
“A message was sent in error to some Ukrainians” who entered the United States under the Uniting for Ukraine program, said Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin in a statement.
She said the “parole program has not been terminated.”
The terse and threatening email stunned Ukrainians across the country when it landed in their inboxes Friday, advocates for immigrants said, leaving parents shaken and children in tears. It arrived on the same day that a Russian ballistic missile landed near a playground in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, killing at least 16 people, including six children, despite a partial ceasefire.
Rabbi James Greene, chief executive of Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, which aids immigrants and refugees, said he heard Ukrainians across the United States received the email, which was dated Thursday. He wondered why the notice had been drafted, since Ukraine is at war with Russia and it is unsafe for immigrants to return.
The email notice on Department of Homeland Security letterhead said the government was terminating Ukrainians’ parole, a provisional permission to enter the United States, unless they had obtained legal status another way. Many Ukrainians have since obtained temporary protected status, which is not set to expire until October 2026.
The notice, which advocates provided to the Washington Post, echoed rhetoric that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem has deployed on social media to target undocumented immigrants, ordering immigrants to leave, threatening to rescind their work permits and warning they could be criminally prosecuted or fined if they fail to depart.
“It is time for you to leave the United States,” the notice began, and warned that if they failed to heed the notice, “The federal government will find you.”
“The letter itself, the language is shameful,” Greene said. “‘It’s time for you to leave the United States? The federal government will find you?’ That is not who we are.”
“I am grateful to know that this is untrue,” he added.
Greene said his organizations received reports that immigrants in California, Washington state, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Massachusetts received the notice.
He said many of those who received it had applied to renew their parole under Uniting for Ukraine, a Biden program created after the February 2022 Russian invasion of that country to protect people fleeing the war. The program allowed people to come to America if they passed background checks and had a U.S. sponsor who could help them.
The Trump administration paused the program, pending a review, after taking office in January.
“The situation in Ukraine is unsafe,” Greene said. “Here people have jobs, they are paying taxes, they are self-sufficient.”
He said Ukrainians arrived with hopes of one day returning home if the war ended, he said. “But nothing has changed, the situation remains unsafe and volatile.”
Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., criticized the mistake.
“Telling Ukrainians they have to return to an active war zone in seven days or face criminal prosecution is unconscionable,” he said. “The Trump administration’s incompetence and cruelty continues to astound, and they must be held accountable.”