A 17-year-old Ukrainian girl remained in US government custody on Saturday after being denied immediate entry into the country by authorities along the southern border, where growing numbers of Ukrainians have traveled in hopes of entering the US, her handlers told CBS News.
On Wednesday evening, Yelyzaveta, 17, who was studying to be a missionary in Mexico, traveled with Alina Dolinenko, 21, another student missionary from Ukraine, to the US border crossing at San Ysidro in Southern California. Unable to return to war-torn Ukraine, Yelyzaveta and Dolinenko hoped to enter the United States to live with a Maryland resident who sponsored their missionary program in Mexico.
US border officials have allowed hundreds of Ukrainians to enter the country daily through the San Ysidro border crossing after being told in early March to consider exempting those holding Ukrainian passports from the pandemic-era restrictions currently restricting other migrants prevent them from seeking asylum.
But when they were cleared at the San Ysidro port of entry, Dolinenko said U.S. border officials told them Yelyzaveta was not allowed to enter the country immediately because she was a minor and was not traveling with her parents or guardians.
Yelyzaveta in Tijuana, Mexico Sharon Fletcher
US border officials told them they would “take Yelyzaveta away indefinitely because she has no right to cross the border without her parents,” said Dolinenko, who was allowed to enter the United States. “She cried a lot.”
A 2008 law requires US border officials to temporarily detain undocumented children being treated without their parents or guardians until they can move them to shelters overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The law generally requires this transfer to occur within 72 hours.
Designed to protect migrant children from violence and human trafficking, the law has been applied primarily to minors from Central America, who make up the vast majority of unaccompanied youth in HHS care.
However, the unprecedented number of Ukrainians flying to Mexico to escape the Russian invasion and quickly enter the United States has meant that this anti-trafficking law affects a small number of Ukrainian children.
On Friday, HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement was home to at least four Ukrainian children recently transferred from US border detention, a US government official told CBS News, requesting anonymity to discuss internal data.
CBS News only uses Yelyzaveta’s first name because she is a minor. Her exact whereabouts were unknown as of Saturday. Sharon Fletcher, the Maryland resident who was hoping to provide housing for Yelyzaveta and Dolinenko, said Yelyzaveta told her during a two-minute call Thursday that she remained in U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody.
“She just burst into tears and said, ‘I don’t want to be here,'” Fletcher told CBS News. “She doesn’t want to be in this place. She wants to be free.”
CBP and Department of Homeland Security officials did not respond to questions about Yelyzaveta’s treatment and whereabouts. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A US official said Yelyzaveta was not at an HHS facility as of Friday night.
Fletcher runs a nonprofit organization called Forgotten Places, which she said sponsors a program called Youth With A Mission, which trains young Christian missionaries around the world, including in Mexico. Yelyzaveta came to Mexico in January to join Youth With A Mission, Fletcher said.
After the war in Ukraine began, Fletcher said she told Yelyzaveta and Dolinenko that she would host them at her home in Maryland, noting that Yelyzaveta had no family in the United States
Fletcher said Yelyzaveta has not been able to contact her parents for months and that her brother remains in Ukraine to help transport civilians displaced by the war. The family used to live in Vorzel, a town on the outskirts of Kyiv that was occupied by Russian forces last month.
If Yelyzaveta is placed in an HHS animal shelter or nursing home, she would remain in state custody until she turns 18 in June, unless she is released to a US sponsor. 2004
However, HHS typically only releases unaccompanied children to family members such as parents, older siblings, grandparents, uncles, and aunts. The agency can place unaccompanied children with sponsors who are not family members, but the process is longer due to increased screening unless the child’s parents agree to the release.
Fletcher urged the government to release Yelyzaveta as soon as possible to ensure she is not further traumatized by her time in US custody. Fletcher said she is ready to sponsor and host Yelyzaveta.
“Leaving someone in a cell or in this facility, even though she knows her parents are stranded, she’s not even sure if they’re alive or not, Ukraine is at war, I mean all this trauma, that no one should go through that – that bothers me,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher said she has reached out to several congressional offices about Yelyzaveta’s situation, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, whose staff told her they were investigating the matter.
Ukrainian single adults and families traveling with children are processed at US ports of entry along the southern border under exceptions to a pandemic-era restriction known as Title 42, designed to expedite other migrants to Mexico or their home countries.
Thousands of Ukrainians have traveled to Tijuana in recent weeks hoping to benefit from the Title 42 exemptions as they have limited legal avenues to get directly to the US. After their numbers appeared on an ad hoc list prepared by volunteers, Ukrainians show up at the San Ysidro border crossing to ask for permission to enter the United States
In the past week alone, nearly 3,000 Ukrainians have been processed by US border officials, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CBS News on Wednesday. In February, U.S. authorities along the Mexican border reported encountering fewer than 300 Ukrainians, CBP data shows.
Dolinenko, the young student missionary who traveled with Yelyzaveta, said she is currently in San Diego waiting for US border officials to release Yelyzaveta.
“I’m very worried,” she said via a WhatsApp message.
Ed O’Keefe contributed coverage.
More Camilo Montoya Galvez