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Uniting for Ukraine Program – How it Works


The first step for completing the Uniting for Ukraine program is to find your sponsor for the two years that you’re eligible to stay in the US with Uniting for Ukraine. When you determine the sponsor, the first step is to create an account for the sponsor USAS account. Then, the sponsor has to file a Form I-131 for each beneficiary. By USCIS definition, Form I-131 is used to “apply for a re-entry permit, refugee travel document, advance parole travel document (including parole into the U.S. for humanitarian reasons), or advance permission to travel for CNMI long-term residents.”

File all information online. Fill out the entire information about themself and the sponsor. They also provide proof of income and documents to prove that they have status here. It’s either a green card holder or any other legal status in the US.

Then, they fill out the questions about the beneficiaries. So please, be advised that you need to be prepared with all biographic information.

After that, you submit everything to USCIS. Our clients received notices within one and a half days. After that, we have to create the USCIS account for the beneficiaries. When you create that, you have to confirm all the biographical information for the beneficiaries and you have to confirm that beneficiaries had vaccinations. After that, submit everything and our clients receive their travel authorization within one day. And now, they’re gonna be allowed to come to the US.

A common question: Does each beneficiary need a separate my USCIS account? Or can you do it through one head of the family and add everyone in?

It’s one account and you can add other beneficiaries under that account.

Once somebody from Ukraine receives their travel authorization, they have 90 days to use it. They have to print it out from their account. They get an airplane ticket and they have to fly to the United States, holding in their hands, their Ukrainian passport, all their vaccinations, all the birth certificates, etc. printed out.

We recommend printing out everything you uploaded for the sponsor and for the beneficiaries, you’ll be questioned for about an hour at the border, because this is still a new program.

After they question everyone, you have to fly directly to your sponsor. The US Government will be very suspicious if you have a sponsor from California and your ticket is to North Carolina. you have to go to your sponsor. Once you get here, your sponsor has to help you apply for each family member for the beneficiaries separately for a work permit. Even if it’s a baby or somebody retired, who never plans to work a day in America, they need to get a work permit so that they can receive a social security number, because I’ve had questions about that as well.

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