صاحب‌خبر - Mykola Vashchuk may be thousands of miles from Kyiv, his home town, but life has never been busier. He runs pierogi food businesses here in Cleveland and back in Ukraine, works part-time for a local charity, while studying for a law degree at Cleveland State University. His wife works at a daycare and the couple is raising two sons. He and his family have built a new life on the shores of Lake Erie, having fled Ukraine after a Russian bomb blew out two windows of their Kyiv apartment in December 2022. “There was no electricity, no water, so we decided to come to the US,” he says. ‘We no longer go out alone’: what happens after Trump revokes temporary protected status? Read more But the Trump administration’s threats to end programs that have allowed Ukrainians to live and work legally in the US has cast a pall over all his efforts. “I applied for TPS [Temporary Protected Status] five days ago, but who knows [what will happen]. Our applications are still pending,” he says. Three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have forged a new life in the US. One of the largest communities – about 15,000 people – has come to Cleveland, a city that’s been hemorrhaging residents for decades. Shortly after taking office, Trump paused application decisions for the Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) parole sponsorship program that allowed about 150,000 Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion to enter and work legally in the US for up to two years. Many fear the program could be permanently shut down. Last month, the Biden administration extended TPS for more than 100,000 Ukrainians already in the US for 18 months until October next year. Trump has since ordered a review of the wider TPS program, which could affect the residency statuses of about a million people from 17 countries who have fled violence, unrest and environmental disasters. We don’t know what will happen here tomorrow Tetiana JD Vance, the US vice-president, has for several years repeatedly called for ending support for Ukraine, and many fear he may push Kyiv to agree to a settlement with Russia that would see Moscow keep some or all of the Ukrainian territory it currently occupies. Last week comments by the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth – and Trump himself – appeared to embrace that stance and undermine Ukraine’s bargaining position in any peace talks to potentially end the war. The ties that bind Cleveland and Ukraine go back more than a century. The first Ukrainian immigrants settled in the Tremont area of the city in the 1880s, working in the region’s booming manufacturing industries. Thousands more were drawn to Cleveland after the first world war. Today, Parma, a city south of downtown Cleveland, is home to the Ukrainian Village neighborhood where half a dozen Ukrainian churches and cathedrals, several built in the stunning Byzantine architectural style, are found. Its main thoroughfares are lined with Ukrainian flags and Ukrainian is the language heard in many local stores and cafes. With one in 10 of all Ukrainians in the US through TPS living in north-east Ohio, Cleveland has served as a key center for Ukrainians, some of whom have been employed as medical experts at Cleveland Clinic. “Over the past three years I’ve seen cleaning companies, flower shops, design shops open up. I’ve had coffee at brand new Ukrainian coffee shops. I’ve seen new Ukrainian stores open in Parma,” says Zachary Nelson, the program director at Global Cleveland, a non-profit that works with immigrants, including dozens of Ukrainian families through the Uniting for Ukraine program. The heartlessness of the deal: how Trump’s ‘America first’ stance sold out Ukraine Read more “There are Amazon resell places where 80% of the staff are U4U recipients. They are our rust remover in the Rust belt. They are our buffing agent.” Midwestern states such as Ohio have struggled to maintain or grow their populations for decades, with recent research suggesting that declining numbers have only been held off due to the presence of immigrants. Nelson says several Ukrainians have shared their fear that their immigration status may be canceled. “They’re asking: ‘Will we have to leave within two months? Are they going to arrest us and send us to Guantánamo Bay?’” he says. “When they are getting all their information from Facebook or Twitter, the stress is real.” Although other global events have overtaken much of the coverage of the war in Ukraine, the conflict there continues unabated. “I speak to my parents and sister in Kyiv,” says Tetiana, a mother of one living in Cleveland who asked not to be fully identified as her husband serves in Ukraine’s special forces. “There are still attacks every day.” They are our rust remover in the Rust belt Zachary Nelson, Global Cleveland This winter, as in previous years, Ukrainians have suffered from rolling blackouts due to Russia’s bombing of power plants and other key infrastructure. The US State Department currently has a level 4 “do not travel” warning for Ukraine, and Moscow is expected to up its attacks across the country in the coming weeks as the third anniversary of its full-scale invasion approaches. Now in Cleveland for almost two and a half years, Tetiana says her six-year-old son has settled well in school and has even become a fan of the Cleveland Browns, who he watches on TV every Sunday during the NFL season. “We go to church in Parma,” she says. “There is a really great community here.” But recent weeks have created panic among her – she came to the US through U4U and has also applied for TPS – and her relatives. Relief for immigrants as legal services restored after Trump-induced chaos Read more “Now I’m very worried about what will happen because the war is continuing – the war hasn’t stopped and we don’t know what will happen here tomorrow,” she says. “Maybe the government will close this program – I heard they can stop it immediately – and tell us to go home, but it’s still dangerous in Ukraine. I only have TPS until April; it’s very soon. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” She says her son wants to stay in the US because it’s safe. “He hears every day that there is still a war in Ukraine,” she says. “I’m worried about my son’s life.” Send us a tip If you have information you’d like to share securely with the Guardian about the impact of the Trump administration’s temporary protected status decision, please use a non-work device to contact us via the Signal messaging app at (929) 418-7175.∎​