On February 24, 2022, Hanna Zhenova was awakened by the sound of shelling.
On that day, the first of Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine, Zhenova fled her home in the city of Kharkiv, just 25 miles from the Russian border. The 35-year-old escaped first to central Ukraine, and then to Poland. A final move brought her to Winder, Georgia, where she lives with her two young daughters while her husband fights in the Ukrainian army.
“Every day I thank God that I’m here now, safe,” she said. “The most important thing for me that [there’s] no bombing, no bombs flying above my head, above my children’s heads.”
Zhenova is part of an influx of displaced Ukrainians who have relocated to Georgia through a resettlement program that relies on the involvement and generosity of everyday Americans: Uniting for Ukraine.
Introduced in April of last year by the Biden administration, Uniting for Ukraine allows legal U.S. residents to sponsor Ukrainians war evacuees, creating a pathway for them to temporarily stay in the country under a mechanism dubbed humanitarian parole.
“Everybody thinks I’m brave because I’m alone with two children. But I’m not alone,” Zhenova said. “My host family’s helping me. I really appreciate that.”
More dynamic than the formal, years-long refugee resettlement process, Uniting for Ukraine connects people in need with private citizens, who pledge to financially support program beneficiaries and help them transition to life in the U.S. Newcomers ideally need help for only a limited time before finding their footing, with their status giving them access to the state’s social safety net. As Russia’s invasion turns one-year old, many of the Ukrainians who have come to Atlanta have started school, found jobs, moved out of their sponsors’ homes and into apartments of their own.
So far, nearly 115,000 Ukrainian nationals have arrived in the U.S. via the Uniting for Ukraine program, according to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The agency has received 2,825 requests from metro Atlanta residents to sponsor Ukrainians.
“When war breaks out in some distant region, there are many people who have family or friends in the U.S. who are willing to help. This program is a perfect tool. It provides fast relief to those who seek it,” said Tetiana Lendiel, an Atlanta immigration lawyer originally from Ukraine – and a Uniting for Ukraine sponsor.
Last month, the Biden administration announced the creation of two additional sponsorship programs: one for refugees from across the world, and another for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. To Lendiel, that’s a sign that Uniting for Ukraine has set a precedent worth following.
But what the future will look like for the Ukrainians who have sought refuge in the U.S. is uncertain. Their humanitarian parole status lasts only two years, and the creation of a pathway to citizenship would require action from the U.S. Congress.
Lisa Bonds, a Uniting for Ukraine sponsor based in Canton, has seen that uncertainty take a toll, especially as the war in Ukraine continues to drag on, with Biden pledging an additional $500 million in military aid earlier this month.
“I think the hardest part for them now is that they are in limbo,” she said. “Like, ‘Are we going to ever be able to go back to our country? Are we going to be able to become American citizens?’ They don’t know what the future holds.”
Settling in
Janelle Zorko Schultz and her husband are in the habit of hosting foreign exchange students in their Marietta home.
In the spring of 2022, the couple decided to host a war refugee instead. On May 14, they welcomed Aleksey Sorokolet, 24, whom they had connected with on Facebook. Shortly after his arrival, Sorokolet was featured in local TV news, where he showed reporters a video of his bombed-out apartment complex in Mariupol, a city devastated by a months-long Russian siege.
Zorko Schultz explained that the biggest obstacle Sorokolet faced early on was a long wait to get a work permit, a problem shared by other early Uniting for Ukraine beneficiaries that resulted in extra financial strain for sponsors.
“If it’s relying on your family, that’s one thing. If you’re relying on the kindness of strangers, it creates all kinds of odd things in the house.”
More recent arrivals haven’t faced that problem: following a late November rule change, Ukrainian parolees are eligible for work immediately upon arrival.
Roughly a month into his stay in Georgia, Sorokolet was able to receive cash assistance through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), health insurance through Medicaid, and food stamps through the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP). Ukrainian parolees are eligible for these benefits, with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services providing funding to state governments to make services available. Benefits last a maximum of 12 months.
In many ways, Sorokolet is a resettlement success story. He now rents a room outside Zorko Schultz’s home and has a job, working first at an Amazon fulfillment center and now for a delivery service.
Lendiel says a quick path to self-sufficiency hasn’t been universal among Ukrainian parolees. Many have been taken aback by the cost of living in the U.S. – much higher than in Ukraine – and chose to return home. That’s especially true of families.
“It’s kind of two-way traffic, I would say some people are arriving, and are they integrating very successfully and becoming productive members of the society. But some families unfortunately cannot sustain their living here. And sponsors make some commitments to these displaced Ukrainians, but they also cannot provide accommodation or provide financial support” for two full years.
Sorokolet’s current success in Georgia came at significant personal expense to Zorko Schultz. She arranged his flight, housed him for five months and bought him a used, $1,500 car. But she says she is happy to have contributed to the humanitarian response that Russia’s invasion made necessary.
For other sponsors, hosting Ukrainians is an act of generosity that doubles as a political statement.
Nathaniel Lack and his wife Natalia, who is from Russia, tore up their Milton home’s basement office to create a comfortable living space for a family from Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, who stayed with them for two months.
He said the “desire to do something tangible was strong” in part because of his wife’s background and that of her family.
“Perhaps there was some shame in what the Russian government was doing in their name, along with contempt for Putin.”
Outside the Russian-American Lack home, the Ukrainian flag flies alongside the Star and Stripes.
Ukrainian evacuees keep arriving
On Feb. 6, less than three weeks before the Ukraine war’s first anniversary, Artem Parubets, 38, touched down in Atlanta alongside his 66-year-old mother and 12-year-old son.
The Ukrainian family has been welcomed in Melissa Rosales Youssef’s Atlanta home. Parubets and his son, Maksym, share a guest room. Parubets’ mother has one to herself.
“I’ve never seen people more grateful to be alive and to be safe,” Rosales Youssef said.
To promptly get the Parubets signed up for benefits, Rosales Youssef turned for help to the International Rescue Committee, a refugee resettlement agency with offices in Atlanta. A top priority has been getting Maksym enrolled in school.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
Parubets says that Atlanta is like “another world” compared to Ukraine, though sometimes loud noises or the sound of airplanes flying above remind him “for a second of the sound of war.”
He hopes to be able to stay permanently with his family in the U.S.
Even “if the war stops today, [Ukraine] will not get better right away. I want a better future for my son, and for myself, of course.”
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