This story was originally produced by the Concord Monitor. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
Kateryna Nazarova thought it had to be a cruel hoax.
Nazarova, a case manager at the refugee resettlement nonprofit Building Community in New Hampshire, told her Ukrainian clients to remain calm, that the email they had received from the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday telling them to “leave [the country] immediately on your own” had to have been an error.
She scrambled to parse fact from fiction. She avoided following the URL hyperlinked in the email, fearing a scam, but she and the organization’s executive director, Richard Minard, proceeded as though the email were legitimate. They reached out to the state refugee coordinator and then to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s office.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) told Sen. Shaheen that it was not aware of the emails. A spokesman for the state Department of Health and Human Services denied the Monitor’s request for an interview with the refugee coordinator.
No one was getting anywhere.
“Usually, when a message with the senator’s letterhead goes to an office at Homeland Security or DHHS, it gets paid attention to. But I think they were all feeling pretty stonewalled, too,” Minard said. “Part of what was so shocking about this is that it was totally opaque. It’s really grotesque, I think, to issue something like that and then make no information available.”
Then, at 7 p.m. Friday, a second email confirmed their hunch: DHS had mistakenly told some Ukrainian evacuees who had arrived in the United States through the Biden-era Uniting for Ukraine humanitarian parole program that they needed to self-deport within seven days. The department corrected itself, telling evacuees, “The terms of your parole as originally issued remain unchanged at this time.”
For Minard and Nazarova, whose organization has helped almost 300 Ukrainians fleeing war build a life in New Hampshire, the sparsity of details in the message left too many questions unanswered. Both advocates say they still don’t know how the first message was created and for what purpose, a sense of confusion echoed by a letter sent by Sen. Shaheen and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Someone had written the email and sent it.
“Even if this message was sent in error, threatening the abrupt termination of humanitarian parole for Ukrainians is alarming and adverse to the U.S. national interest,” the letter reads, noting that DHS provided Congressional staffers with conflicting responses . “This mixed message sends the wrong signal: that the U.S. may abandon Ukrainians in need even as Ukraine remains under attack by Vladimir Putin.”
For Nazarova, herself a Ukrainian evacuee here legally through Uniting for Ukraine, the erroneous email only underscored the elusiveness of peace.
The original email read in part, “If you do not depart the United States immediately, you will be subject to potential enforcement actions… criminal prosecution, civil fines, and penalties… Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you.”
Ominous in tone, it coincided with news that a Russian missile strike near a playground in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, Kryvyi Rih, had left nine children dead.
“It was hard from both ends. We had such a huge loss in Ukraine, the innocent kids, and then, on top of it, there was this email. Nobody could think clearly,” Nazarova said. “Most Ukrainians came here for the safety of their kids. We don’t mind going back to Ukraine, but everybody is waiting for peace. But when you see that there are kids being hurt in Ukraine, you don’t want it to happen to your kids.”
Nazarova, who didn’t receive the email, feared for the clients who had called her on Friday morning. One Seacoast man, desperate for help, had been in the process of seeking an extension for his humanitarian parole. Through Uniting for Ukraine, evacuees receive two years of humanitarian parole and work authorizations, and they’re connected with American host families who volunteer to provide temporary housing and facilitate their arrival.
Nazarova said her client’s humanitarian parole would be expiring this month and, after applying for an extension in November, he still hadn’t heard back from USCIS. He had been waiting for an update from the federal government when the DHS notification appeared in his inbox.
Most Ukrainians who received the email weren’t expecting any changes to their immigration status.
“Most people were here and doing okay and waiting for something to break in the war so they could have some resolution there,” Minard said. Seven days, Nazarova added, “would not have been enough for basically anything, to quit your job, buy an airplane ticket, figure out what to do with the kids, your bank accounts, rent, landlords, your documents.”
Building Community in New Hampshire works primarily with Ukrainian, Haitian, Congolese and Afghan evacuees, helping them with every part of the resettlement process from resume building and job hunting to providing translation and interpretation services. Minard, who has led the organization since 2018, said he’s never seen or heard of anything like an abrupt, mistaken notice of self-deportation before.
“I still believe in the United States, and I want to trust the U.S. government, and that’s why it’s just so shocking that this happened. It’s shocking that the administration has taken no responsibility for it. But in the scope of things, this is just one more tiny affront to the decency that we expect here in the United States,” Minard concluded.
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