U.S. may strip 100,000 Ukrainian refugees of the right to remain in the country

The U.S. administration has until October 19 to decide the fate of approximately 100,000 Ukrainians in the country under Temporary Protected Status.

This is reported by sb.by, citing TASS and the American outlet Politico.

According to Politico, the administration may decide not to renew the status. One option under consideration is for authorities to “allow the status to expire without officially terminating it” — in which case it would automatically extend for six months. The outlet notes that U.S. authorities previously handled refugees from El Salvador in a similar manner: those individuals were left in a legal “limbo” — they retained the ability to remain in the United States, but it was unclear whether they had the right to work and study in the country.

According to Politico, such an approach would allow authorities to “appease hardliners on immigration” while avoiding the deportation of Ukrainians. Some members of Congress are demanding that the administration end all programs granting refugees the right to remain in the United States, arguing that these programs cost Americans jobs.

One of the newspaper’s sources believes that President Donald Trump’s administration is currently not seeking to “do anything positive for Ukraine.” The outlet also notes that in 2025 Trump had floated the possibility of “canceling a separate program” for admitting Ukrainian refugees, but subsequently abandoned that step under pressure from lawmakers.

“Instead, the administration stopped accepting new applications for the program that gave Americans the opportunity to act as a sponsor for Ukrainians arriving in the United States,” Politico clarifies.