Flames and smoke billow from buildings throughout mass Russian drones and missile strikes on Ukraine’s capital in July 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Oleksii Filippov/AFP through Getty Pictures
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Oleksii Filippov/AFP through Getty Pictures
The U.S. deported 50 folks to Ukraine this week, a Ukrainian border official mentioned on Tuesday, in what seems to be the one largest such deportation from the U.S. because the nation has been at struggle with Russia.
The flight landed close to the Polish border within the early hours on Monday. Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported 105 Ukrainians in whole, with 13 within the final quarter of 2024, in keeping with the most recent knowledge obtainable in ICE’s publicly obtainable tracker.
The Trump administration initially needed to ship 80 folks on the flight, in keeping with Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s ambassador to america. That unique record additionally included a minimum of one person who Ukraine had beforehand been unable to assert as a citizen of the nation.
It wasn’t instantly clear why solely 50 folks out of the group of 80 ended up in Ukraine.
Immigration legal professionals have raised considerations that these deported to Ukraine might be conscripted to battle within the struggle. All males in Ukraine from ages 25 to 60 are eligible to be drafted, although some ladies and youthful folks have additionally volunteered. Whereas U.S. legislation permits deportations, together with to international locations that individuals are not initially from, home and worldwide legal guidelines prohibit deportations to put the place somebody might face violence, persecution or torture.
The Trump administration has brokered offers with international locations with infamous human rights information or who’re going through battle, together with with South Sudan, Libya, Eswatini, Rwanda and El Salvador, to obtain deportees from america, because it seeks to ramp up mass deportations.
Six of the 8 males deported to South Sudan over the summer time are nonetheless there, in keeping with their legal professionals, whereas the Related Press reported that these despatched to the opposite international locations have been imprisoned there.
“At the moment, border guards have ensured their registration within the border relation for entry into Ukraine in accordance with the principles established by legislation,” Andrii Demchenko, spokesman for Ukraine’s State Border Service, advised NPR. “It’s price noting that Ukraine accepts its residents in any case.”
The spokesperson mentioned Ukraine would settle for any of its personal residents who had been deported from the U.S.
The embassy didn’t reply questions concerning what would occur to folks deported to the nation.
“It needs to be famous that deportation is a broadly used authorized mechanism offered for by the immigration legal guidelines of most international locations around the globe,” Stefanishyna mentioned in a press release offered to NPR. “It’s a routine process utilized to all overseas nationals and stateless individuals who violate the phrases of their keep in america, no matter their nationality.”
One migrant first profiled by NPR fought speedy deportation
Eric Lee, an immigration lawyer with a shopper on the flight, mentioned the detainees embrace individuals who have lived within the U.S. since they had been kids.
“Many have U.S. citizen spouses and kids. Some don’t even communicate Ukrainian, and others are usually not even Ukrainian residents, having been born within the Soviet Union earlier than Ukraine existed as a separate nation,” Lee mentioned in an interview.
Certainly one of Lee’s purchasers, Roman Surovtsev, was lately transferred by means of a number of detention facilities in Texas in preparation for the deportation to Ukraine, whilst his attorneys proceed to battle his removing in court docket.
Based on Justice Division court docket filings, the administration had supposed to place him on the flight. NPR confirmed he ended up not being deported after an immigration court docket stayed his deportation hours earlier than the flight, whereas his case was reopened in immigration court docket.
Surovtsev, who lived in Dallas together with his U.S. citizen spouse and two kids, was born within the Soviet Union. He got here to the U.S. as a refugee, however misplaced his inexperienced card when he was an adolescent when he pleaded responsible to a carjacking in California.
As NPR has beforehand reported, the U.S. beforehand tried and didn’t deport Surovtsev to Ukraine, which was unable to offer the mandatory journey paperwork for deportation. For years, Surovtsev accomplished yearly check-ins with Immigration and Customs Enforcement till he was detained throughout his go to in August. ICE then tried to offer him deportation paperwork, however these papers had been in Ukrainian, a language he doesn’t communicate.
His staff of legal professionals was capable of vacate his conviction and transfer ahead with reinstating his inexperienced card. Nonetheless, Surovtsev has remained in detention.
U.S. District Decide Ada Brown, who was appointed by President Trump, initially blocked Surovtsev’s removing earlier this month by means of Jan. 13 however reversed her resolution a couple of days later, shocking Surovtsev’s attorneys.
“He’s more likely to obtain his inexperienced card as soon as once more very quickly. And he has additionally not been given the chance to precise his worry of being deported to an lively struggle zone,” Lee mentioned.
A DHS spokesperson mentioned in a press release that Surovtesev has already obtained due course of.
“He obtained full due course of and was ordered eliminated by an immigration choose on November 4, 2014 — over a decade in the past,” the spokesperson wrote. “Beneath President Trump and Secretary Noem, for those who break the legislation, you’ll face the results. Felony unlawful aliens are usually not welcome within the U.S.”
