MEXICO CITY – On a dusty field on the east side of Mexico´s sprawling capital, some 500 Ukrainian refugees are waiting in large tents under a searing sun for the United States government to tell them they can come.
The camp has only been open a week and 50 to 100 people are arriving every day. Some have already been to the US border in Tijuana where they were told they would no longer be admitted. Others arrived at airports in Mexico City or Cancun, anywhere they could find a ticket from Europe.
“We are asking the US government to process faster,” said Anastasiya Polo, co-founder of United with Ukraine, a nongovernmental organisation that collaborated with the Mexican government to establish the camp.
She said according to AP that after a week´s time none of the refugees there “are even close to the end of the program.”
The programme, uniting for Ukraine, was announced by the US government April 21. Four days later, Ukrainians showing up at the US-Mexico border were no longer exempted from a pandemic-related rule that has been used to quickly expel migrants without an opportunity to seek asylum for the past two years.
Instead, they would have to apply from Europe or other countries such as Mexico. To qualify people must have been in Ukraine as of Feb. 11; have a sponsor, which could be family or an organisation; meet vaccination and other public health requirements; and pass background checks.
Polo said US government officials had told her it should take a week to process people, but it appeared like it was just beginning.
Some of the first arrivals had received emails from the US government acknowledging they received their documents and the documents of their sponsors, but she had heard of no sponsors being approved yet.
