Tamila Vashchuk and her husband, Mykola, are minor celebrities in this corner of Ohio.
The Ukrainian couple have appeared on the cover of local magazines and been invited onto morning television shows. En route to building a successful pierogi food business, they’ve met with the governor. A recent law graduate from Cleveland State University, Mykola is hoping to do his bar exams someday. Most Sundays, they volunteer at the local church.
But now, the family faces an immigration court hearing they believe could see them deported back to Ukraine, where they would struggle to treat their son’s illness and where Russia’s ferocious assault has increased in recent weeks.
Four years ago, Tamila noticed their 10-year-old son, whom they asked not to be named, wasn’t growing physically as they expected he would.
“His appetite was so low. He was not gaining weight,” she recalls.
Facing astronomical medical and testing expenses in Ohio, Tamila and her son decided to temporarily return to their hometown, Kyiv, where they knew they could get their son’s health assessed at a cost they could afford.
Before they did, Tamila made numerous trips to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Cleveland to ensure that if they left the US, they could re-enter the country without problems. She also called Customs and Border Protection officials at the Cleveland airport, from whom she received similar advice.
“We were told repeatedly that due to the humanitarian parole stamps in our passports, we would be re-admitted to the US without any issues,” she says.
But when their son’s treatment ended in Ukraine and the family came back to the US through Boston Logan international airport in December 2022, they were immediately issued with removal orders, having allegedly violated the terms of the parole, which prohibit leaving the US.
“The officer said: ‘Technically, you have broken the parole.’ Our brains were absolutely melted,” recalls Mykola, who does not face deportation, having entered the US just once.
Tamila and her son now face a court hearing, initially set for late June but which has been rescheduled for August, that could see them taken into custody and deported.
“I have two master’s degrees. We know this country. We love this country,” Tamila says. “We just want to stay here.”
If deported, the health of their child, whose daily medication to treat his hormonal deficiency must be refrigerated at all times, would be at significant risk.
All the while, several judges at Cleveland’s immigration court are noted for being especially unforgiving.
TRAC, a research center at Syracuse University, found that immigration judges based in Cleveland have been denying asylum applications at rates of more than 70% for years. The judge assigned to the Vashchuks’ case has the highest asylum denial rate in the court, and one of the highest in the country.
What’s more, the court has also become a place where ICE agents regularly detain people.
Questions sent to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asking whether the family’s potential deportation is an excessive punishment given the health risk and potential threats to their lives from the conflict were not directly answered.
A statement from a DHS spokesperson said: “In December of 2022, Tamila Vashchuk and her son … attempted to illegally re-enter the US through Boston, without valid travel documents. They were admitted to the US in June of 2022 under the Uniting for Ukrainians humanitarian parole program but traveled outside of the US without permission and without valid travel documents. They both will receive full due process, pending the outcome of their immigration proceedings in August.”
Russia’s years-long targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which has seen its electricity generation capacity reduced by 50% due to near-nightly bombing raids, means that if they are deported to Ukraine, keeping the son’s medication refrigerated would be near impossible. On top of that, there aren’t steady supplies of the medicine.
“The doctor was saying that the supply in Ukraine is unreliable, and he has to take it until he is 18,” says Mykola.
“In our apartment building, there is no electricity, no fridge, no heating, no water.”
The Vashchuks aren’t the only Ukrainians facing mounting problems in the US. Temporary protected status (TPS) for an estimated 103,000 Ukrainian nationals is set to end in October.
Last year, the Trump administration froze the Uniting for Ukraine program, which allowed more than 235,000 people fleeing the war to enter the US. Trump has frequently criticized Ukraine and its political leadership for refusing to bend to Russia’s demands.
All the while, Russia’s assault on Ukraine has escalated.
In recent weeks, dozens of people have been killed and hundreds injured in Dnipro, Kyiv and Kharkiv in some of the worst attacks since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
All this has fueled human rights groups to call on the Trump administration to extend immigration resources for Ukrainians in the US.
A report released in February by Global Refuge, a Maryland-based non-profit, found that “Country conditions in Ukraine continue to meet the statutory requirements for TPS, including armed conflict and other extraordinary conditions that affect the ability of nationals to safely return”.
The US Department of State has categorized Ukraine as a “level four: do not travel” country due to what it calls the risk of “active ground combat, frequent shelling, missile and drone attacks on populated areas and civilian infrastructure”.
While the Uniting for Ukraine program that the Vashchuks entered the US on prevents holders from being deported, Mykola says that immigration judges have discretionary authority “and can make whatever decision they deem appropriate. I don’t know what’s going to be in the judge’s mind.”
Historically, Cleveland has been home to one of the largest Ukrainian communities in the country, which began to grow in the early 1900s as people left poverty and famine to seek work in factories. Today, the city’s suburbs are dotted with large eastern orthodox churches and, since Russia’s invasion, the community has grown by several thousand people, fueling a host of local cultural festivals.
“We work in the public school systems and we have seen every single Ukrainian student graduate on time and every single one be accepted into post-secondary education programs,” says Patrick Kearns, executive director of Re:Source Cleveland, a non-profit that works with immigrants in Ohio’s Cuyahoga c