scandal

That's one of the top things I'm wondering about. Everything else about U4U seems to be warp speed compared to normal governmental processing. So maybe, perhaps, they're expediting the EADs too. On the other hand, probably not. Makes a big difference in practice: are the people we're sponsoring dependent on us for 6+ months, or can they plan on starting to work much sooner than that? Inquiring minds would like to know. I guess we're about to find out.

Our beneficiaries got here tonight. Picked them up at O'Hare , just got them settled in for the night. Their flight landed at 8pm but they didn't get out of CBP clearance until nearly 3 hours later. Apparently there were a lot of other U4U folks on the same flight from Warsaw, and they were processing all of them in a group. Asked a bunch of questions, took photos, not quite sure what else took 3 hours. Anyway, the ordeal is over and they're now officially and legally in the US. Tomorrow we can start the million +1 things needed to integrate them successfully.

Oh, since I'm on a roll here (4 posts in a row... let's make it 5!) here is a shameless plug for a couple of blog posts I wrote about my experience so far with the U4U program. U4U Questionnaire https://reversiontomean.wordpress.com/2022/05/08/u4u-questionnaire/ Uniting for Ukraine – Early Impressions https://reversiontomean.wordpress.com/2022/05/08/uniting-for-ukraine-early-impressions/

I've been researching Travel Medical Insurance, and I think it could be a good solution for the initial months, until the Ukrainian adults are able to get jobs which hopefully would include a decent employer provided health coverage. As an example, I'm looking at this Patriot America Plus https://www.imglobal.com/img-insurance-plans/patriot_plus . For pre-existing conditions, coverage is for : Acute Onset of Pre-Existing Conditions (Insured person must be under 70 years of age) where "acute" is defined further as: Should you experience a sudden and unexpected outbreak or recurrence of a pre-existing condition, this coverage provides necessary emergency care for any medical emergency that is life threatening or requires immediate medical treatment. Coverage is available for travelers under age 70, and maximum limits vary by plan and age. In-network coverage is the United Healthcare (UHC) network, so pretty broad nationwide network of doctors and hosptials. The policy can be purchased for any period of time from 5 days up to a year and is renewable up to 2 years. So that's plenty of time till either get them on employer provided care, or ACA. For eligibility - (5) on the Effective Date and on subsequent renewal dates, must have legally departed the Country of Residence and legally entered the Destination Country (6) not have established a permanent residency in the Destination Country For I think this would work for U4U participants, since they would have left Ukraine and any 3rd country prior to legally entering the USA (condition 5) and they are parolees, not permanent residents in the US (condition 6) Regarding cost, I priced out 4 months of coverage for the family of 4 we are sponsoring and it came to about $700 (you can play around with policy limits and deductibles to adjust the premium level). That's not bad at all, definitely something we could do. Assuming this isn't "junk" insurance. It seems legit, but hard to know. Also, I recently found out that in Illinois the children will qualify for the state Allkids program, so apparently I only need to buy coverage for the adults. Other states may have similar programs.

Yeah, like wow! Whenever did VJ get so psycho. Back in the day, such things never happened, this was a much more genteel site. ☠️ 💀

Wow! This is SUPER helpful. Thanks so much for posting it. I've actually shared it on the Facebook "Helping Ukrainian refugees in the USA group", since that's a very active forum with over 4k members, Ukrainians and Americans, all trying to navigate the U4U process. I also suggested to my beneficiaries that it may be a good idea to print this out and take to the airport for check in, just in case the ground staff of the airline is unfamiliar with U4U and doesn't recognize their CBP Travel Authorization. Probably not necessary, but seems like a simple extra precaution.

Sorry, just seeing this now, wasn't logging onto VJ over the past week (my wife got COVID, so not been a fun one...) Anyway, they are traveling on LOT from Budapest -> Warsaw -> Chicago. They have a 2 hour layover in Warsaw. Should be an easy connection. Good luck with your family's travel plans!

Yes. That happened to the family we are sponsoring too. They are 4 people, and all 4 CBP docs have the DOB off by exactly 1 day. They've talked to other U4U beneficiaries, it's happened to them too, seems to be a common issue. We're not worried about it. We already bought their plane tickets, they're coming here next week.

We are done! We are sponsoring a family of four from Kherson - mom, dad and 2 kids. They are coming to us in Chicago. We filed the I-134 sponsorships on May 4. Yes, we did this FOUR TIMES, once for each member of the family. That is the required procedure. We were approved on May 6, and the beneficiaries got emails. They went on USCIS site to enter their parts and were also done on May 6. They now have CBP approval for their entry to US. I am buying their plane tickets, they will com here next week. AMAZING how fast it all went. Now my main concerns are a) health insurance for them b) filing I-765 for their Employment Authorization EAD. Timelines for EAD are taking months for everyone else, not sure if U4U people will be expedited fast on EAD just as they were for the first part of this process. I wrote up a blog post of our experience so far with U4U. https://reversiontomean.wordpress.com/2022/05/08/uniting-for-ukraine-early-impressions/

Will do

Thanks TBone! I really appreciate that link. Just read through the whole thing. Some good info there, particularly someone posted a screenshot of the steps beneficiaries will need to go through to complete their part of the process and submit online to CBP. I'm going to make the FB folks aware of this thread and send them here to VJ.

Somewhat surprised that there's nothing much showing up (yet?) on VJ about the recently introduced "Uniting for Ukraine" (U4U) program. Link to DHS page: :https://www.dhs.gov/ukraine Link to the USCIS page for online filing of I-134 Declaration of Support : https://www.uscis.gov/i-134 (N.B. - this MUST be filed online for U4U they are not accepting paper submissions) There is a Facebook group Helping Ukrainian refugees in the USA which is very active (at least as of now - May 2022) for people discussing U4U program. On that group there are: Ukrainians who have fled their country who are seeking sponsorship from Americans under the U4U program Americans who want to find deserving Ukrainians they can sponsor A lot of people with a lot of questions and confusion about the process. And it's fair to say the process is confusing (as all US immigration processes are). Sponsors don't know what they need to file, Ukrainians don't know what they need to provide, lots of confusion going on I, having completed a K1 petition for my fiancee (now long married wife) 12 years ago with the assistance of VJ, thought I might point people in that Facebook group to an appropriate spot here where there might be some guides and information to assist. However seems like there's not much here. I did find my prior K1 experience helpful when I completed four I-134s to sponsor a family of 4 Ukrainians, and I'm giving some informal advice on the FB group to others doing the same. I'm also amazed as to how quickly the process seems to be going. For those of us accustomed to the glacial pace of USCIS adjudications, my jaw literally dropped when I submitted the online I-134s on Wed and they were approved on Fri! TWO DAYS. We're not done yet of course, next step is they contact the Ukrainian family via email to upload their documents and vaccination records. But we're very excited at the prospect the family may be here with us in the USA in time to celebrate the 4th of July.

ok, I did find some discussion here . What I'm really looking for though are other people in same situation as we are: concerned Americans who want to help by sponsoring a Ukrainian family but who don't know anyone there. I have found a couple of Facebook groups devoted to this. I kind of expected VJ to be out in front of it however it's so new (the program was only launched on Monday) that perhaps no one here has brought it up.

So cool to see this thread right after I randomly dropped into VJ too after so many years!! Well, not quite so randomly. I did my Visa journey stint around 2008-2010 when we went through K-1/AOS etc (I honestly don't even remember all the acronyms) for my wife from Thailand. So here we are, 12 years later, happily married with a 7 year old daughter. Just another VJ success story. So what, you ask, am I doing back on VJ now? No, I'm not here to engage in the raging political fights I recall on off-topic. Rather, wen(the wife and I) have started looking seriously at the possibility of sponsoring a refugee Ukrainian family under the new Uniting for Ukraine program https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/uniting-for-ukraine I thought maybe there might be some useful information on VJ from others who are exploring this option. I haven't seen anything here though I'll keep looking.