Desperate Ukrainians want a faster path to safety in the United States. “We would hope the Biden administration, because of the severity and suddenness of this conflict, would work on expediting the applications for people to come through the refugee program,” said Courtney Madsen of the resettlement agency Church World Service. President Biden said the United States will welcome 100,000 refugees from the besieged nation. That’s not enough, say critics like Oksana Condon of the Ukrainian Jersey City organization.
Families who’ve managed to make their way here on temporary tourist visas need working papers and maybe some help with housing and food, Condon said. “It’s already traumatizing that they had to pick up and leave their country, in fear of their lives. And now they have to fight here to get some sort of commitment from United States.” Her group is holding fundraisers to help support 10 families that fled Ukraine.
