By Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News
The Trump administration is considering revoking the temporary immigration status of an estimated 5,000 newly arrived Ukrainians in Metro Detroit ― a move that would blow a hole in the workforce of the nearly 100 employers that rely on them in the region.
President Donald Trump said this month he’s weighing whether to roll back the legal protections put in place under President Joe Biden that permitted Ukrainians to come to the U.S. and work following the Russian invasion of their country three years ago. The consideration comes as Trump is trying to broker a ceasefire between Moscow and Kyiv.
“We’re not looking to hurt anybody. We’re certainly not looking to hurt them, and I’m looking at that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in early March when asked by reporters about revoking the Ukrainians’ status and deporting them.
“There were some people that think that’s appropriate, and some people don’t, and I’ll be making the decision pretty soon, OK? We’re not looking to hurt them. … They’ve gone through a lot.”
Such a change would affect more than 240,000 Ukrainian immigrants who have resettled in the U.S. since 2022 under a Biden-era program called Uniting For Ukraine. The immigrants were granted temporary humanitarian parole and allowed to work in the country legally without fear of deportation. About 63,000 Ukrainians in the U.S. also have Temporary Protected Status, which is granted to those who can’t safely return to their countries because of violence, natural disasters or civil unrest.
A reversal would be in line with a larger effort within the Trump administration to revoke the legal status of nearly 1.5 million migrants permitted to enter the U.S. during the Biden administration under temporary humanitarian parole.
Aside from Ukrainians, these programs also covered 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans and about 74,000 Afghans who fled the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security in January said it will phase out any parole programs that are not in accordance with the law, criticizing Biden’s parole policies as “indiscriminate.”
The news has unsettled Viktor Kucher, 35, who arrived in the U.S. in September 2023 through the United for Ukraine program and now lives in Pontiac with two friends from his hometown of Cherkasy, near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. The weather and natural landscape in Michigan remind him of Ukraine, he said.
“Of course, I’m worried because the war don’t stop in my country. I don’t want to live in Europe, and I can’t go home because there is still war, and I don’t know when this war is stopped,” said Kucher, who got a job in the pharmaceutical industry in Michigan.
“(We) all just waiting. Nobody knows what will be. But nobody wants to go home. Because we ran away from war.”
Employers given notice
The human services agency Samaritas, which helps resettle and support newly arrived refugees, said that roughly 5,000 Ukrainians who arrived in southeast Michigan after the war started in February 2022 are working at nearly 100 employers in Metro Detroit.
In February, Samaritas began notifying the 300 employers that it partners with around the state that some of the refugees whom they employ might soon lose their legal status, which would affect their work authorization and could mean that they face deportation proceedings once their parole expires.
“We wanted to make sure our employers understood what that could mean for their business,” said Kelli Dobner, chief growth officer for Samaritas, which helps to resettle about half of the refugees who come to Michigan each year, including 1,700 in 2024.
“We have some employers that have hired a couple hundred refugees at a time, so that would cause some issues.”
Michigan ranks among the top states nationally for refugee resettlements, according to federal data. The state was expecting up to 4,580 refugee arrivals during fiscal year 2025 before the Trump administration halted all new refugee admissions in January.
One of the companies that partners with Samaritas is the staffing agency Amplitude HR in Troy, whose president, Mike Kernen, estimated the firm has placed 500-700 Ukrainians in mostly manufacturing jobs in the region over the last three years. Amplitude works mostly with Tier 1 and Tier 2 automotive suppliers.
“It’s mass panic. Nobody is happy about it. Everybody is super upset, especially as their papers are expiring ― which is happening every day,” Kernen said.
He said Ukrainians are “outstanding” workers, passionate, loyal and willing to work for $17 an hour in entry-level positions that are difficult to recruit for in southeast Michigan because of the pay rate. Kernen said he hopes Trump changes course and decides to keep the temporary status for Ukrainians for the sake of their personal safety but also for the Michigan economy, emphasizing that they are legal immigrants.
“Do I want a safe border? 100%,” Kernen said. “Do I want to keep these refugees here that are contributing into society? Absolutely. They’ve been a godsend to our economy, to be honest.”
The situation is getting more complicated by the day, as more workers run up against paperwork problems, finding their parole status is expiring or their work authorization is due for renewal, he said.
“I’m unsure if (Trump) knows what the impact is. He’s looking at the big picture. He’s looking at a war. He’s not looking at Igor and Ira who are living in Detroit working at an automotive plant who were displaced from their home because a bomb fell on it,” Kernen said.
“Hopefully, he figures it out and has some good people coaching him through all this, and the dust settles, and people can continue on with their lives, get things renewed and provide them with the American dream.”
Trump freeze
After Trump took office in January, he issued an executive order directing officials to “terminate all categorical parole programs” that are contrary to the administration’s goals. Officials at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services then paused the form that had been used by Americans and others in the U.S. to sponsor migrants under humanitarian parole programs, including United for Ukraine.
The freeze on the program has meant that Ukrainians and others in the U.S. on parole have been unable to apply to renew or extend their parole when it expires after the initial two years, said Elsy Ramos Velasquez, an attorney who advises employers and individuals out of the Washington, D.C., office of the Michigan-based law firm Clark Hill.
“No new applications are being accepted and pending applications won’t be processed,” Ramos Velasquez said.
Neither U.S. CIS nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to questions this week from The Detroit News.
If an immigrant “falls out of status” because his or her parole expires or because the Ukrainians’ Temporary Protected Status is terminated, the immigrant could be placed in removal proceedings to be deported, Ramos Velasquez said.
Parole status or Temporary Protected Status also are what make these immigrants eligible for work authorization, so without renewing their status, an immigrant won’t be able to re-up their permit to legally work in the U.S.
“That’s why you have these refugee organizations advising folks who are here under temporary status to find an alternative to stay in the U.S. legally with having that fear of being placed into removal proceedings and returned to Ukraine,” Ramos Velasquez said.
Seeking other options
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was set to expire in April for Ukrainians before Biden’s administration in January extended it 18 months until October 2026. Given that Trump has also targeted TPS, Ramos Velasquez and others are advising Ukrainians to consider other options.
For instance, Ukrainians could try to apply for asylum, or those with parole status who are married to a U.S. citizen could see if their spouse would sponsor them. They could also be sponsored by an employer to try to secure an employment-based visa, Ramos Velasquez said.
“A lot of companies don’t want to lose their workforce, and they don’t want to lose employees that they’ve dedicated time and training to. They’re trying to encourage them to find other options and determine what other ways you can stay in the United States,” Ramos Velasquez said.
“The big thing is not waiting until 15 or 30 days before their status expires because immigration proceedings take time. Be proactive and determine if there’s something that you can do now.”
There would likely be litigation if the Trump administration tried to end humanitarian parole or TPS status for Ukrainians, said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank.
“Then it would be up to the courts to decide what happens, so I don’t know that there’s a straightforward path from the Trump administration making its next move and people losing their status right away. We’ll have to see how that plays out,” Gelatt said.
“Unfortunately, there’s a lot of people who are living with that insecurity right now between the Ukrainians, the Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came through parole and others with TPS who are wondering what comes next.”
Gelatt noted that during Trump’s first administration, officials also moved to end parole programs, arguing they were intended by Congress to be used for smaller groups of immigrants on a case-by-case basis and not large categories of people.
Sam Rozenberg, 59, of West Bloomfield Township emigrated from Ukraine in 1978 and started a nonprofit platform to raise money for its people during the war with Russia. He has spoken to multiple Ukrainians who fled to the Detroit area in the last three years, drawn there in part because the region already hosts a vibrant Ukrainian community.
“When they came to America, it was just safety they were seeking. Now that that safety is in jeopardy of being taken away, they are making other plans. They are disappointed,” Rozenberg said of the new arrivals.
“Many of them were planning to go back to Ukraine anyway, and this is pushing them to accelerate that decision. For some, they’re ignoring it, and they’ll go back when they’re ready. … I think this is opening up their eyes that democracy is not all flowers. That political will changes.”
Rozenberg predicted Trump will extend Ukrainians’ protected status as long as necessary because the political backlash in the congressional midterm elections would be too high, in part because of the high regard that many Americans have for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and bipartisan support for Ukraine in general.
“I think most Ukrainians believe in that, too,” he said. “Maybe it’s wishful thinking.”
Kucher said his work authorization paperwork expires Sept. 6. He may not apply to renew it with the parole program paused, and he isn’t eligible for Temporary Protected Status because he arrived in the U.S. too late to qualify.
Kucher won’t apply for an employment-based visa because that would require him to return to Ukraine, where he could be conscripted into the Army to fight the Russians, he said.
He would rather remain in the U.S. for two more years if he’s able to renew his parole. But Kucher won’t stay without that authorization to work because he couldn’t support himself, he said.
“I want to stay here. I like it so much, and now I have a very good job. Right now, I am happy. The one that I worry about is my humanitarian parole,” Kucher said.
“I just need to await news about that. But I believe we will stay here. All Ukrainians who want will stay.”
mburke@detroitnews.com
