In adusty camp on the eastern side of Mexico’s sprawling capital, some 500 Ukrainian refugees wait in large tents under a scorching sun for the United States government to tell them they can be accepted.
The camp has only been open for a week and every day they arrive between 50 and 100 people, as reported by the New York Post .
Some have already been to the United States border in Tijuana, where they were told they would no longer be admitted.
Others arrived at Mexico City or Cancun airports, anywhere they could find a ticket from Europe.
“We are asking the United States government to process faster,” said Anastasiya Polo, co-founder of United with Ukraine, a non-governmental organization that collaborated with the Mexican government to establish the camp. She said that after a week, none of the refugees there “are even close to the end of the program.”
The program, United for Ukraine, was announced by the US government. USA on 21 April.
Four days later, the Ukrainians who showed up at the border between The US and Mexico were no longer exempt from a pandemic-related rule that has been used to rapidly expel migrants with no opportunity to apply for asylum for the past two years.
In Instead, they would have to apply from Europe or other countries like Mexico. To qualify, individuals must have been in Ukraine as of February 11; have a sponsor, which can be the family or an organization; comply with vaccination and other public health requirements; and pass background checks.
Polo said US government officials had told him it should take a week to process people, but it seemed like they were just getting started.
Some of the first to arrive had received emails from the US government acknowledging that they received their documents and the documents of their sponsors, but she had heard that no sponsor had been approved yet.
“These people cannot stay in this camp, because it is temporary,” said Polo. More than 100 of the camp’s residents are children.
Nearly 5.5 million Ukrainians, mostly women and children, have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded the country on 24 February, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Giorgi Mikaberidze, aged 19 years old, is among those who wait. He arrived in Tijuana on 25 in April and found the border with the United States closed.
He complained that the government of the US had given so little notice, because so many people like him were already in transit. It went from being just a few yards from the United States to about 600 miles (966 kilometers) now.
When the US government announced at the end of March that it would accept up to 500,000 Ukrainian refugees, hundreds entered Mexico daily as tourists in Mexico City or Cancun and flew to Tijuana to wait a few days, eventually just a few hours, to be admitted.
Appointments at US consulates in Europe were scarce and refugee resettlement takes time, so that Mexico was the best option.
Traveling through Mexico was torturous, but an informal group of volunteers, mostly from Slavic churches in the western United States, welcomed the refugees into Tijuana airport and took them to a recreation center that the city made available for several thousand to wait.
A wait of two to four days was finally reduced to about few hours when US border inspectors took the Ukrainians away.
That special treatment ended on the day Mikaberidze arrived in Tijuana.
“We want to go to the United States because (we are) already here, some don’t even have money to return,” he said.
Mikaberidze was visiting relatives in Georgia, southern Ukraine, when the Russian invasion occurred and he was unable to return.
His mother remains in her village near Kharkov, in eastern Ukraine, afraid to leave her house because Russian troops are shooting indiscriminately at cars driving through the area, she said.
“He said it is a very dangerous situation,” said Mikaberidze, who traveled to Mexico alone.
The Mexico City camp provides a safe place to wait. It was erected inside a large sports complex, so you could see Ukrainians pushing strollers with children along the sidewalks, playing soccer and volleyball, even swimming.
However, refugees have been warned that while they are free to leave the complex, no one is responsible for their safety. Iztapalapa, the most populated district of the capital, is also one of the most dangerous.
The Mexican government was providing security in the camp with some 50 officers, Polo said. The Navy had also set up a mobile kitchen to provide meals.
She said that they felt safe inside the camp, but that they were asking the government about the possibility of moving the camp to a more safe.
Mykhailo Pasternak and his girlfriend Maziana Hzyhozyshyn waited at the entrance of the complex on Monday afternoon.
Both of them were suffering from an apparent cold and planned to move to a hotel for a day or two to try and get some sleep and recover before heading back to camp.
Pasternak had left the United States to help Hzyhozyshyn enter. The two had spent several days in Tijuana before flying to Mexico City and arriving at camp on Sunday.
The couple stood out in the streets of Iztapalapa and seemed to wither under the relentless sun. The couple had known each other for six years.
“She is my love”, said Pasternak.
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