As bombs began dropping on Mariupol, Ukraine, in March 2022, a nurse and her child hid in the basement of their apartment building with a group of about 30 people – mostly senior citizens.
Food was scarce, and so was fresh water. Still, they made do, melting snow and filtering water from the batteries of the heating units in the building to use.
When the fighting moved away from the suburb where they lived that June, the pair fled to Poland and eventually to Starkville to start over, hoping to escape the fighting and the fear.
“I see my child here growing up and I see here now, she’s not terrified of the airplanes in the sky,” the former nurse told The Dispatch anonymously, out of fear of retaliation, using a translator. “When (my daughter) left Ukraine, she was in the age where she could remember everything and she could remember the war. And at the beginning in the United States, when planes were flying in the sky, she was terrified of that.”
Still, other fears remain. While the former nurse has made a life for herself in Starkville by working as a cleaning lady and putting her child through school, she now faces the possibility of having to leave the new life she has built for them.
In January, President Donald Trump’s administration suspended the Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) program – a humanitarian initiative allowing American families to sponsor Ukrainians entering the country for refuge.
Trump has also ended humanitarian parole programs that allowed 875,000 migrants to come to the United States from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela since taking office, according to reports from the Associated Press.
Still, more may be on the horizon. According to a report from Reuters last week, which cited four anonymous sources close to the issue, the president is weighing the legal status of 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict with Russia.
“We’re not looking to hurt anybody. We’re certainly not looking to hurt them, and I’m looking at that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about revoking the Ukrainians’ status and deporting them, the report from Reuters said. “There were some people that think that’s appropriate, and some people don’t, and I’ll be making the decision pretty soon.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has since discredited the Reuters article, calling it “fake news … based on anonymous sources who have no idea what they are talking about.”
“The truth: no decision has been made at this time,” she wrote in a post on X.
‘Just like one of us’
Still, the conversation ignited fear in Ukrainian refugees who came to America during the Russian conflict, Lowndes County resident and refugee advocate Rodney Mast told The Dispatch on Friday.
“The idea of going back is not only fearful, it’s a matter of life and death,” Mast said.
Mast has worked with International Host Connection to help Ukrainian orphans for years and adopted three Ukrainian children of his own. Through the now defunct U4U program, he has also independently helped more than 20 Ukrainian refugee families find sponsors in the Golden Triangle area and more than 150 families find sponsors across the United States.
Mast has also mentored and assisted many of the families through challenges like purchasing plane tickets, finding housing, purchasing cars and finding jobs.
“These are hardworking people that are loving and kind and they go to the same schools that our children go to,” Mast said. “They go to the same churches that we go to. They are plugged into the community and contributing taxes. They’re just like one of us. They’re the people that we go to church with. They’re the people that come over for Christmas.”
A Ukrainian woman who is now living in Columbus, who also requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation, told The Dispatch she and her husband were awakened Feb. 21, 2022, by bombing in the middle of the night in their home country.
They packed up suitcases for three days, took their daughter and fled their home in the Nietzsche region and went further into central Ukraine.
“Even there, (my daughter) heard the bombing,” she said. “We weren’t far enough for her not to hear that. I remember, she was six at that time, and I remember her asking, ‘Mom, why are they killing Ukraine? Why are they killing Ukrainian people?’”
The family kept moving and went to Poland and then to the United States through the U4U program. Three days after they arrived in August 2022, Mast and other connections helped her husband get a job at a local car shop. Since she speaks English, the woman could more easily learn about American culture and help other Ukrainians as they adapted.
The woman maintained her online job as a teacher as well, though she is currently on maternity leave after having a second baby eight weeks ago.
“This is the cutest little American I have ever seen, if I can say so,” she said of her infant son.
Nothing to go ‘home’ to
While it has been difficult to start a new life from scratch, the Columbus woman said the community has helped her family with getting everything from basic necessities to a car to drive. Her daughter, who is now 9 years old, loves attending school. She speaks and counts in English, and she now speaks Russian with an English accent instead of her native one.
Their family’s home in Ukraine was destroyed, the woman said, and her mother’s home has also been bombed multiple times. Basically, she said, she has nothing to go back to.
“The highest fear is, will they make my child go back during the war?” the Columbus woman said. “And no, I just don’t believe that. Americans are not that way. We were shown the generosity. We were shown the beauty of the culture. We were shown the care. So many good words come up in my language, but not that many in English. And I just can’t compare the article that says you have to go home and the community here.”
The Ukrainian native living in Starkville expressed similar gratitude for the help she received in coming to the United States, along with fear about having nothing to return to in her country – which is still at war with Russia, though ceasefire deals were in the works as of press time Tuesday.
Mast had his own fears around the conversation.
“What are we sending them back to?” he asked. “There’s nothing to send them back to. And it’s like, what are we going to do? Send them back to hell?”
Still, Mast has a hard time believing that the same country that embraced Ukrainian refugees to begin with would advocate for sending them back to a war zone.
“We’re the Friendly City,” Mast said. “It’s who we are in the South. It’s who we are in Mississippi. We’re a people who give. We’re a people who care. And that is what the Golden Triangle has given to these people.”
Mast said he has been on the phone with lawyers and others to try to discuss the rights of refugees in the area since last week. He encouraged others in the area to pick up their own phones and advocate for their Ukrainian neighbors.
“The biggest thing for people to do right now if they want to help is call senators and congressmen, and give the voice that these are good people,” Mast said. “They’re neighbors. We know them. We go to school with their children. We go to church with them.
“That’s probably the No. 1 thing to do right now,” he added.
You can help your community
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 40 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
