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 U.S. 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 U.S. government to process faster,” said Anastasiya Polo, co-founder of United with Ukraine, a nongovernmental organization, that collaborated with the Mexican government to establish the camp. She said that after a week’s time none of the refugees there “are even close to the end of the program.” The program, Uniting for Ukraine, was announced by the U.S. government April 21. Four days later, Ukrainians showing up at the U.S.-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 organization; meet vaccination and other public health requirements; and pass background checks. Also Read: Civilians rescued from Mariupol steel plant head for safety Polo said U.S. 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 U.S. government acknowledging they received their documents and the documents of their sponsors, but she had heard of no sponsors being approved yet. “These people cannot stay in this camp, because it is temporary,” Polo said. 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 its smaller neighbor on Feb. 24, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Giorgi Mikaberidze, 19, is among the waiting. He arrived in Tijuana April 25 and found the U.S. border closed. He complained that the U.S. government had given so little notice, because many people like himself were already in transit. He went from being just yards from the United States to some 600 miles (966 kilometers) now. When the U.S. government announced in late March that it would accept up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, hundreds entered Mexico daily as tourists in Mexico City or Cancun and flew to Tijuana to wait for a few days – eventually only a few hours – to be admitted to the U.S. at a San Diego border crossing on humanitarian parole. Appointments at U.S. consulates in Europe were scarce, and refugee resettlement takes time, making Mexico the best option. Traveling through Mexico was circuitous, but a loose-knit group of volunteers, largely from Slavic churches in the western United States, greeted refugees at the Tijuana airport and shuttled them to a recreation center that the city of Tijuana made available for several thousand to wait. A wait of two to four days was eventually shortened to a few hours as U.S. border inspectors whisked Ukrainians in. That special treatment ended the day Mikaberidze arrived in Tijuana. “We want to go to America because (we’re) already here, some don’t have even money to go back,” he said. Mikaberidze was visiting relatives in Georgia, south of Ukraine, when the Russian invasion occurred and was not able to return. His mother remains in their village near Kharkhov in eastern Ukraine, afraid to leave her home because Russian troops indiscriminately shoot up cars traveling in the area, he said. “She said it’s a very dangerous situation,” said Mikaberidze, who traveled to Mexico alone. Also Read: Evacuation of civilians from Ukrainian steel plant begins The Mexico City camp provides a safe place to wait. It was erected inside a large sports complex, so Ukrainians could be seen pushing strollers with children along sidewalks, playing soccer and volleyball, even swimming. However, the refugees have been warned that while they are free to leave the complex, no one is responsible for their safety. Iztapalapa, the capital’s most populated borough, is also one of its most dangerous. The Mexican government was providing security at the camp with about 50 officers, Polo said. The Navy had also set up a mobile kitchen to provide meals. She said they felt safe inside the camp, but were asking the government about the possibility of moving the camp to a safer area. Mykhailo Pasternak and his girlfriend Maziana Hzyhozyshyn, waited at the entrance to the complex Monday afternoon. Both suffering from an apparent head cold, they planned to move to a hotel for a day or two to try to get some sleep and recover before returning to the camp. Pasternak had left the U.S. to help Hzyhozyshyn get in. The two had spent several days in Tijuana before flying to Mexico City and arriving at the camp Sunday. The couple stood out on the streets of Iztapalapa and appeared to be withering under the relentless sun. The couple had known each other for six years. “She’s my love,” Pasternak said.    

Hundreds of Ukrainian refugees arriving daily have a message for family and friends in Europe: the fastest route to settle in the United States is booking a flight to Mexico. A loose volunteer coalition, largely from Slavic churches in the western United States, is guiding hundreds of refugees daily from the airport in the Mexican border city of Tijuana to hotels, churches and shelters, where they wait two to four days for U.S officials to admit them on humanitarian parole. In less than two weeks, volunteers worked with U.S. and Mexican officials to build a remarkably efficient and expanding network to provide food, security, transportation, and shelter. The volunteers, who wear blue and yellow badges to represent the Ukrainian flag but have no group name or leader, started a waiting list on notepads and later switched to a mobile app normally used to track church attendance. Ukrainians are told to report to a U.S. border crossing as their numbers approach, a system that organizers liken to waiting for a restaurant table. “We feel so lucky, so blessed,” said Tatiana Bondarenko, who traveled through Moldova, Romania, Austria and Mexico before arriving Tuesday in San Diego with her husband and children, ages 8, 12, and 15. Her final destination was Sacramento, California, to live with her mother, who she hadn’t seen in 15 years. Also read:Mariupol’s dead put at 5,000 as Ukraine braces in the east Another Ukrainian family posed nearby for photos under a U.S. Customs and Border Protection sign at San Diego's San Ysidro port of entry, the busiest crossing between the U.S. and Mexico. Volunteers under a blue canopy offered snacks while refugees waited for family to pick them up or for buses to take them to a nearby church. At the Tijuana airport, weary travelers who enter Mexico as tourists in Mexico City or Cancun are directed to a makeshift lounge in the terminal with a sign in black marker that reads, “Only for Ukrainian Refugees.” It is the only place to register to enter the U.S. About 200 to 300 Ukrainians were being admitted daily at the San Ysidro crossing this week, with hundreds more arriving in Tijuana, according to volunteers who manage the waiting list. There were 973 families or single adults waiting on Tuesday. U.S officials told volunteers they aim to admit about 550 Ukrainians daily as processing moves to a nearby crossing that is temporarily closed to the public. CBP didn't provide numbers in response to questions about operations and plans, saying only that it has expanded facilities in San Diego to deal with humanitarian cases. “We realized we had a problem that the government wasn’t going to solve, so we solved it,” said Phil Metzger, pastor of Calvary Church in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista, where about 75 members host Ukrainian families and another 100 refugees sleep on air mattresses and pews. Metzger, whose pastoral work has taken him to Ukraine and Hungary, calls the operation "duct tape and glue” but refugees prefer it to overwhelmed European countries, where millions of Ukrainians have settled. The Biden administration has said it will accept up to 100,000 Ukrainians but Mexico is the only route producing big numbers. Appointments at U.S. consulates in Europe are scarce, and refugee resettlement takes time. The administration set a refugee resettlement cap of 125,000 in the 12-month period that ends Sept. 30 but accepted only 8,758 by March 31, including 704 Ukrainians. In the previous year, it capped refugee resettlement at 62,500 but took only 11,411, including 803 Ukrainians. The administration paroled more than 76,000 Afghans through U.S. airports in response to the departure of American troops last year, but nothing similar is afoot for Ukrainians. Oskana Dugnyk, 36, hesitated to leave her home in Bucha but acquiesced to her husband's wishes before Russian troops invaded the town and left behind streets strewn with corpses. The couple worried about violence in Mexico with three young children but the robust presence of volunteers in Tijuana reassured them and a friend in Ohio agreed to host them. Also read: Killing of Ukrainian civilians could bring new sanctions “So far, so good,” Dugnyk said a day after arriving at a Tijuana gymnasium that the city government opened for about 400 Ukrainians to sleep on a basketball court. “We have food. We have a place to stay. We hope everything will be fine.” Alerted by text message or social media, Ukrainians are summoned to a grassy hill and bus shelter near the border crossing hours before their numbers are called. The city government opened the bus shelter to protect Ukrainians from torrential rain. Angelina Mykyta, a college student in Kyiv, acknowledged nerves as her number neared. She fled to Warsaw after the invasion but decided to take a chance on the United States because she wanted to settle with a pastor she knows in Kalispell, Montana. “I think we'll be OK,” she said while waiting to be escorted from the camp of hundreds of Ukrainians to their final stop in Mexico — a small area with a few dozen folding chairs within earshot of U.S. officials. Some refuse to drink at the final stop, fearing they will have to go to the bathroom and miss their turn. Lulls end when CBP officers approach: "We need a family." “Give me three more.” “Singles, we need singles.” A volunteer ensures orderly movement. The arrival of Ukrainians comes as the Biden administration prepares for much larger numbers when pandemic-related asylum limits for all nationalities end May 23. Since March 2020, the U.S. has used Title 42 authority, named for a 1944 public health law, to suspend rights to seek asylum under U.S. law and international treaty. Metzger, the Chula Vista pastor, said his church cannot long continue its 24-hour-a-day pace helping refugees, and suspects U.S. authorities will not adopt what volunteers have done. “If you make something go smooth, then everybody's going to come,” he said. “We're making it so easy. Eventually I'm sure they'll say, ‘No, we’re done.'”

They file into neighboring countries by the hundreds of thousands — refugees from Ukraine clutching children in one arm, belongings in the other. And they’re being heartily welcomed, by leaders of countries like Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania. But while the hospitality has been applauded, it has also highlighted stark differences in treatment given to migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa, particularly Syrians who came in 2015. Some of the language from these leaders has been disturbing to them, and deeply hurtful. “These are not the refugees we are used to… these people are Europeans,” Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov told journalists earlier this week, of the Ukrainians. “These people are intelligent, they are educated people. ... This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists…” “In other words,” he added, “there is not a single European country now which is afraid of the current wave of refugees.” Syrian journalist Okba Mohammad says that statement “mixes racism and Islamophobia.” Mohammad fled his hometown of Daraa in 2018. He now lives in Spain, and with other Syrian refugees founded the first bilingual magazine in Arabic and Spanish. He said he wasn’t surprised by the remarks from Petkov and others. Mohammad described a sense of déjà vu as he followed events in Ukraine. Like thousands of Ukrainians, he also had to shelter underground to protect himself from Russian bombs. He also struggled to board an overcrowded bus to flee his town. He also was separated from his family at the border. “A refugee is a refugee, whether European, African or Asian,” Mohammad said. When it comes to Ukraine, the change in tone of some of Europe’s most extreme anti-migration leaders has been striking — from “We aren’t going to let anyone in” to “We’re letting everyone in.” Those comments were made only three months apart by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. In the first, in December, he was addressing migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa seeking to enter Europe via Hungary. In the second, this week, he was addressing people from Ukraine. And it’s not just politicians. Some journalists are also being criticized for how they are reporting on and describing Ukrainian refugees. “These are prosperous, middle-class people,” an Al Jazeera English television presenter said. “These are not obviously refugees trying to get away from areas in the Middles East... in North Africa. They look like any European family that you would live next door to.” The channel issued an apology saying the comments were insensitive and irresponsible. CBS news also apologized after one of its correspondents said the conflict in Kyiv wasn’t “like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European” city. When over a million people crossed into Europe in 2015, support for refugees fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan was much greater. Of course, there were also moments of hostility — such as when a Hungarian camerawoman was filmed kicking and possibly tripping migrants along the country’s border with Serbia. Still, back then, Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, famously said “Wir schaffen das” or “We can do it,” and the Swedish prime minister urged citizens to “open your hearts” to refugees. Volunteers gathered on Greek beaches to rescue exhausted families crossing on flimsy boats from Turkey. In Germany, they were greeted with applause at train and bus stations. Read: European Union closes airspace to Russia But the warm welcome soon ended after EU nations disagreed over how to share responsibility, with the main pushback coming from Central and Eastern European countries like Hungary and Poland. One by one, governments across Europe toughened migration and asylum policies, doubling down on border surveillance, earning the nickname of “Fortress Europe.” Just last week, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees denounced the increasing “violence and serious human rights violations” across European borders, specifically pointing the finger at Greece. And last year hundreds of people, mainly from Iraq and Syria but also from Africa, were left stranded in a no man’s land between Poland and Belarus as the EU accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of luring thousands of foreigners to its borders in retaliation for sanctions. At the time, Poland blocked access to aid groups and journalists. More than 15 people died in the cold. Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean, the European Union has been heavily criticized for funding Libya to intercept migrants trying to reach its shores, helping to return them to abusive — and often deadly — detention centers. “There is no way to avoid questions around the deeply embedded racism of European migration policies when we see how different the reactions of national governments and EU elites are to the people trying to reach Europe,” Lena Karamanidou, an independent migration and asylum researcher in Greece, wrote on Twitter. Jeff Crisp, a former head of policy, development and evaluation at UNHCR, agreed that race and religion influenced treatment of refugees. Like many, he was struck by the double standard. “Countries that had been really negative on the refugee issue and have made it very difficult for the EU to develop coherent refugee policy over the last decade, suddenly come forward with a much more positive response,” Crisp noted. Much of Orban’s opposition to migration is based on his belief that to “preserve cultural homogeneity and ethnic homogeneity,” Hungary should not accept refugees from different cultures and different religions. Read: 6 children killed, 45 injured in Ukraine: President Zelenskyy Members of Poland’s conservative nationalist ruling party have also consistently echoed Orban’s thinking on migration to protect Poland’s identity as a Christian nation and guarantee its security, they say, arguing that large Muslim populations could raise the risk of terror threats. But none of these arguments has been applied to their Ukrainian neighbors, with whom they share historical and cultural ties. Parts of Ukraine today were once also parts of Poland and Hungary. Over 1 million Ukrainians live and work in Poland and hundreds of thousands more are scattered across Europe. Some 150,000 ethnic Hungarians also live in Western Ukraine, many of whom have Hungarian passports. “It is not completely unnatural for people to feel more comfortable with people who come from nearby, who speak the (similar) language or have a (similar) culture,” Crisp said. But as more and more people scrambled to flee as Russia advanced, several reports emerged of non-white residents of Ukraine, including Nigerians, Indians and Lebanese, getting stuck at the border with Poland. Unlike Ukrainians, many non-Europeans need visas to get into neighboring countries. Embassies from around the world were scrambling to assist their citizens struggling to get through chaotic border crossings out of Ukraine. Videos shared on social media posted under the hashtag #AfricansinUkraine allegedly showed African students being held back from boarding trains out of Ukraine — to make space for Ukrainians. In Poland, Ruchir Kataria, an Indian volunteer, told the Associated Press on Sunday that his compatriots got stuck on the Ukrainian side of the border crossing leading into Medyka, Poland. In Ukraine, they were initially told to go to Romania hundreds of kilometers away, he said, after they had already made long journeys on foot to the border, not eating for three days. Finally, on Monday they got through.