The Rev. Myron Myronyuk stayed up all night at home in Pennsylvania as his twin brother tried to flee Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, only to turn back because the road out was choked with traffic. His in-laws, also in Ukraine, told him they couldn’t get basics like bread and milk. There was little Myronyuk could do but pray that his loved ones would survive the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A sense of helplessness overcame Ukrainians in America as the war unfolded half a world away, with little chance their loved ones in Ukraine would find refuge in the U.S. any time soon. For now, they are trying to donate money and supplies, desperately seeking advice from immigration attorneys about how to get family here and pleading for world leaders to intervene more forcefully. “I say, ‘We’re praying for you, we wish you to be safe, go to a safe place,’” said Myronyuk, pastor of St. Vladimir Ukrainian Catholic Church in Scranton, Pennsylvania. “We have to continue to pray and ask God for help,” he said, but “there’s not much else we can do here.” Demonstrators gathered in Manhattan’s Times Square and near the Russian Federation’s mission to the United Nations on Thursday, waving blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags and denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin. About 100 people took to an overpass in Chicago, putting their hands to their hearts as the Ukrainian national anthem blared from a big speaker. “The worst part is we cannot help them any more. We would send money, but everything is closed,” said Chicago resident Hrystyna Klym, who has been in the U.S. for 15 years and has family in Ukraine. Klym volunteers with an organization that has regularly sent clothes, magazines, money and other items to help Ukraine’s needy, particularly wounded soldiers, but she said there’s no way to donate directly now. At Ukrainian Village Food & Deli in the Cleveland suburb of Parma Heights, Mila Radeva, 39, said her father — who lives near the Ukrainian port city of Odessa — had taken shelter in his basement as explosions rocked the area. “A lot of people are going to die,” said a worried Radeva, who emigrated to the U.S. 20 years ago. Asked if her father and other relatives might flee to another country, she said: “There’s no place for them to run.” Ekaterina Mouratova, a Miami immigration attorney, said Thursday was “a crazy day,” with phone calls and emails from Ukrainians and Russians seeking refuge in the United States. Ukrainians hope to flee Russian troops, while Russians worry they may get drafted and have bank accounts frozen in a wartime economy. She offered little encouragement, predicting Poland would be a far more realistic possibility for escape. “There is no effective legal mechanism to bring people here,” she said. Ukrainians could potentially flee their country, fly to Mexico from Europe as tourists, and enter the U.S. by land to claim asylum, as a growing number of Russians have done over the last year, Mouratova said. Fleeing war, however, is not considered legal grounds for asylum. Ukrainians could also be eligible for refugee resettlement — under which up to 125,000 can be accepted in the U.S. this year after being approved abroad — but processing has been slow as U.S. authorities focus on Afghans seeking to […]

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