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It’s greater than 10,000 kilometers from Medyka, the Polish border metropolis that may be a first cease for a lot of Ukrainian refugees, to Tijuana, Mexico, the place greater than 1,700 Ukrainians are ready for an opportunity to cross into america.
“They’re arriving as vacationers,” says Enrique Lucero Vásquez, the municipal director of migrant care in Tijuana, with whom I spoke in a sports activities complicated that has been repurposed to obtain the Ukrainian households.
About 400 individuals are already housed on the middle, the place they spend one to 2 nights earlier than being escorted to the border crossing and admitted by the U.S. Border Patrol.
In 2018 I used to be on this identical place, in an much more congested courtyard, however as an alternative of Ukrainians it was filled with Central American migrants who had journeyed north in a collection of caravans. The method this time is as totally different because the circumstances that led the folks to flee their homelands.
As in Medyka — the place I reported earlier than coming to Tijuana — lots of the refugees are separated from husbands, dad and mom or kids. I keep in mind the ache within the face of Yulia Usik, a mom of youngsters aged 4 and 5, once we spoke on the Przemysl prepare station in Poland.
By means of tears, she repeated the phrases of her husband who had stayed in Ukraine to combat: “He promised that he would come again for us.”
Now historical past is repeating itself. This time it’s on the San Ysidro checkpoint, the place Ukrainian volunteers have arrange chairs for folks ready to cross, {that a} mom of a 4-year-old lady and a 5-month-old lady talks to me with the assistance of a translation cellphone app.
With out revealing her identify, the girl explains that on the primary day of the struggle, after the primary bombing, she determined to go away Ukraine. She arrived along with her daughters in Poland the place she has a sister and after three weeks determined to attempt to attain america, the place one other sister resides in Springfield, Missouri.
She traveled to Cancun along with her daughters, her two sisters and her 56-year-old mom, who sits close by with a shawl overlaying her head and a Ukrainian passport in her hand. Within the midst of the folks and the noise of building on the border, the girl stares on the horizon, misplaced in thought.
In accordance with the older daughter, the household has left 4 males behind in Ukraine to combat the Russian invaders.
Ukrainian Camp
Aside from the sports activities complicated, a tent metropolis has sprung up the place about 800 refugees spend the night time earlier than touring by municipal bus to the border crossing. Ukrainian volunteers present safety, meals and amusement for the youngsters who run round chasing cleaning soap bubbles.
Day and night time, the automobiles line as much as cross into San Ysidro, California, beckoned by the American hills seen behind the border wall. Voices rise in Russian and Ukrainian, although the laughter and tears of the youngsters acknowledge no language boundaries.
Lucero, the municipal director of migrant care in Tijuana, tells me the sports activities complicated was opened for the refugees as a result of the tent camp close to the Tijuana-San Ysidro crossing had grow to be too crowded.
He acknowledges that town has responded extra shortly to this disaster than to the standard stream of migrants from Central America, Haiti and extra distant elements of Mexico. For these, town maintains one other 25 shelters the place some have waited for nearly two years for a change in American coverage that can allow them to hunt asylum within the U.S.
He additionally says a few of these Ukrainian refugees have extra sources than the Central Individuals; some have even been staying in native lodges within the metropolis.
Upon arrival in Tijuana, the refugees are registered by volunteers and positioned on a ready checklist, explains white-coated Gilberto, who prefers to not present his surname. We communicate in an improvised medical care middle within the Ukrainian camp.
“I arrived two weeks in the past, earlier than I helped with transportation from the airport, to right here or to the opposite aspect, however then I got here right here to assist with the medical aspect,” he says. “Right here they’re on a precedence checklist, those that got here earlier than are right here, those that got here after keep within the gymnasium, they’re regularly transferring to the road, however in an orderly method.”
The coordination of all actions — arrival, transportation, registration, lodging and supply to the Border Patrol — is managed by a blended group of volunteers that features representatives of The Gentle of the World Church in Sacramento, California, and Calvary Church in San Diego.
The volunteers are deeply dedicated to making sure that the households will not be solely cared for however are shortly admitted into america.
To do that, they created a cellphone app that permits them not solely to be registered on a listing that might be introduced to the Border Patrol, but in addition to keep up an orderly stream of individuals via the pedestrian checkpoint.
Anastasiya Polovin, a Ukrainian native now residing in Orange County within the Los Angeles space, has left the music academy that she runs to help her compatriots. Chatting with me within the sports activities complicated, she stresses the significance of offering the refugees with sizzling meals, showers and different fundamental comforts.
However she says, much more pressing is to hurry up the method of admitting them into america underneath a humanitarian exception to regular admission procedures that’s not obtainable to most different migrants arriving on the border.
Polovin insists that the humanitarian exception needs to be obtainable not solely right here in Tijuana after lengthy journeys and appreciable expense. Advocates for the refugees need the federal government to permit them to fly straight into america from Europe.
Polovin shares that she is initially from the besieged southern metropolis of Mikolaiv, the place Ukrainian forces halted the Russian advance towards Odesa. “I’ve misplaced many individuals I do know,” she says.
Even so, she says, six of her kinfolk have just lately made it into america and can be part of her mom who’s already in California. Satirically, one among them was turned down for refugee standing within the U.S. two years in the past.
“It was not till the struggle started that he was assured entry,” she says.
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