President Donald Trump “is planning to revoke temporary legal status for some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict with Russia,” Reuters reported Thursday, which would “potentially putting them on a fast-track to deportation” which is expected to start as soon as April.
The deportation of Ukrainians would be a reversal of the welcome 100,000 Ukrainians and others fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine received under President Joe Biden’s administration in April 2022.
Photo: Office of Congresswoman Victoria Spartz, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The only Ukrainian-born member of Congress, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) — born in Ukraine in 1978 when it was part of the Soviet Union; moved to the U.S. in 2000 at the age of 22; became an American citizen in 2006 — appeared on Greta Van Susteren‘s NewsMax show on Wednesday to discuss the potential of the U.S. reaching a minerals deal with Ukraine.
During the interview, Van Susteren veered off-topic and said, “Everyone seems to forget that Russia kidnapped all those children, took all those children, brought them back to Russia, Ukrainian children, and a lot of those children don’t even know that they had parents in Ukraine. And he’s [Putin] kidnapped so many children.”
Van Susteren said: “I don’t know what the numbers are but it’s staggering, isn’t it?”
Last night, Rep. Spartz spoke with @Greta on @NEWSMAX about the need to have a proper policy and strategy on Russia. pic.twitter.com/QgVqV9ThZa
— Rep. Victoria Spartz (@RepSpartz) March 5, 2025
Spartz replied, “Oh yes, and I think that’s a horrific situation, President Trump understands it, and that’s why for the Ukrainian government to do what they’ve done, [it’s] such a disservice to the Ukrainian people.”
Spartz turned the conversation back to the minerals deal and said: “The only person who can force Russia to actually get to the table and really deal with this issue is President Trump, and he cares about getting results.”
Note: Matthew Gertz, Senior Fellow at Media Matters, responded to the Trump administration’s move to deport Ukrainians on X: “I am skeptical that the reason Trump and Vance are doing what they’re doing is because they want to save Ukrainian lives.”
Note: Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which started in February 2022, according to BBC News: “Russia has forcibly transferred almost 20 thousand Ukrainian children to areas under its control, assigned them Russian citizenship, forcibly adopted them into Russian families, and created obstacles for their reunification with their parents and homeland.”
The United Nations has stated that these deportations constitute war crimes, and according to an AP report, “the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for President of Russia Vladimir Putin (who has explicitly supported the forced adoptions, including by enacting legislation to facilitate them).”
