It will allow her to bring in some income and build some independence for herself and her daughter. But after recently being granted TPS, she shared that she can finally start working at the beginning of March. Under the tourist visa, Krezhenstovska was unable to obtain a job. It temporarily protected people who could not return to their home countries due to a political or environmental catastrophe. She said people have been able to continuously renew their applications under the Temporary Protection Status (TPS) program, which was created back in 1990. will likely not close its doors on these refugees, no matter how long they need to stay. This says, 'Although it is given initially a two-year protected status, a Ukrainian citizen is able to then renew this protective status every year,'" Kimberly Bruno, a Houston-based immigration attorney, said.īruno said the good news is the U.S. So this is an indefinite temporary protective status. "This (Uniting for Ukraine) is also a passageway to a future of some type of citizenship. She said what's been extremely difficult is seeing the destruction happening in her home country. It was thanks to a childhood friend who lives in Houston who helped her get some grounding here by getting her own apartment and sending her daughter back to school. Her husband and son are unable to leave the country due to the same reason as Solovei's husband.
about three weeks later to stay with a friend in Houston on a tourist visa obtained before the war for a different trip. Their day-to-day routines - work and school - had to be abandoned as they had to frequently take cover during the risk of missile strikes.Īs the bombs hit closer and closer to home, she and her daughter made the difficult decision to separate from the men in their family. Kateryna Krezhenstovska remembers sleeping in her apartment in Kyiv when the bombings began. "To be honest, during the beginning of the war, we were hoping that it would only last a few weeks. I (could not) just leave (my husband)," Solovei said. I was the last person who entered (the) bus. "It was the hardest moment in my life, because I still remember our last meeting (at the) bus station. But as the attacks worsened over the next four months, he asked her to flee the country and seek refuge with a friend in the United States.
She was adamant about staying and not leaving him behind.
Solovei's husband could not leave the country due to a law that requires men ages 18 to 60 to stay in Ukraine in case they get drafted for the war. Even if you don't want to go down to the basement because you're tired from going down all the time, the sirens will force you," said Solovei. "For me, the siren is the worst sound ever. They stayed to care for her father-in-law, who had cancer and evacuated to the basement every time the sirens went off. However, nowhere else in Ukraine felt any safer for Solovei and her husband. She looked outside her apartment window and saw people rushing to leave with their luggage. 24, 2022, was for people in her Khmelnytskyi neighborhood. Some shared how emotional the past year has been, being so far from family and worrying about their safety every single day.ĭaryna Solovei recalls how frantic the morning of Feb. Since then, the United States has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of whom have resettled in Houston. HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) - This week marks one year since Russia invaded Ukraine, igniting a war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced about 8 million people. Ukrainian refugees in Houston reflect on their new lives in the United States nearly one year after seeking asylum from the attack from Russia.
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