GRAND RAPIDS, Mich — President Biden announced Thursday the United States will welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. Details have not been announced.
West Michigan organizations working with refugees and immigrants are also on a standby.
"We so applaud the announcement by the Biden administration," said Sandra Mascari-Devitt, the remote refugee resettlement specialist with Bethany Christian Services, "with the willingness to resettle Ukrainian refugees due to this crisis."
However, Bethany does not know how many Ukrainian refugees they will be helping to place. They have about 300 people with ties to and family members in the Traverse City area with open refugee cases. Mascari-Devitt hopes the President's announcement will help those families be reunited.
Plus, she expects the number to grow.
"It's too soon to tell," said Mascari-Devitt about how the refugees placement will work, "We don't know what timeline. We don't know if they're going to take those open cases first."
Those decisions, however, could come at any time from the Department of Homeland Security.
Bethany Christian Services is ready to help in ways they can, once those decisions are made. Likely, in Michigan, they will work to place people in the Traverse City area.
"Traverse City already has an existing Ukrainian population," said Mascari-Devitt, "We have about 700 individual Ukrainians that already exist, that are working, one businesses, have a variety of different kinds of jobs, their children are in school, and we have two Ukrainian churches that support this community."
Other organizations are waiting for more information as well, like Lighthouse Immigrant Advocates, which helps immigrants and refugees in Kent, Ottawa, and Muskegon Counties. Its founder, Sara Yore-Van Oosterhout, said the situation is vastly different than the one we recently saw with Afghan refugees.
"We were using U.S. planes, like the U.S. military themselves," said Yore-Van Oosterhout, "We were evacuating people. Whereas in this situation, there's no occupation. And so, the the absence of U.S. presence means that they're not actually coming out on U.S. transport."
Yore-Van Oosterhout said they have not seen any numbers yet, calling it "too early." Yet, they would expand their program and open doors to whoever needs assistance.
"They're fleeing to all of these different countries surrounding Ukraine," said Yore-Van Oosterhout, "I think the UN is still working to set up camps there and to get those individuals processed."
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