President Joe Biden is expected to announce plans for the US to accept 100,000 Ukrainian and other refugees who’ve fled their homes to escape Russia’s unprovoked invasion.
According to the United Nations, more than 3 million Ukrainians — including half the country’s children — have left since Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to invade one month ago.
Mr Biden is expected to make the announcement Thursday from Brussels, Belgium, where he has traveled to attend an extraordinary Nato summit and meet with the European Council to discuss the West’s response to the ongoing crisis.
A decision to accept such a large number of refugees would be one of the largest influxes of refugees into the US in recent years, and would come after criticism that Mr Biden and the United States have not done enough to absorb the massive flow of persons who’ve been displaced by Russian forces over the last four weeks.
On 12 March, Polish president Andrzej Duda called on the US to “speed up” the processing of Ukrainian refugees who have relatives already living in the US during a joint appearance with Vice President Kamala Harris.
According to US census data, over 350,000 Ukrainian immigrants currently reside in the United States.
At the time, Mr Duda said the crisis would “end up in a refugee disaster” if the US did not act swiftly.
But despite promises from Mr Biden to welcome refugees with open arms, his administration has not taken the sorts of public steps that would signal openness to a large flow of displaced persons.
Instead, Biden Administration officials have stressed that the US response to the crisis thus far has been to support efforts by Poland and other neighbouring countries to accept refugees who cross from Ukraine via land borders.
