The Trump administration on Friday said it accidentally told some Ukrainians refugees they needed to leave the U.S. immediately because their legal status was being revoked, telling CBS News the message was sent by mistake.
Some Ukrainians who had entered the U.S. under the Biden administration following Russia’s invasion of their homeland received emails this week telling them that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would be terminating their legal protections, according to advocates and a notice obtained by CBS News.
“DHS is now exercising its discretion to terminate your parole,” the April 3 notice said, referring to the temporary legal status that the Biden administration granted to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. “Unless it expires sooner, your parole will terminate 7 days from the date of this notice.”
The Biden administration welcomed roughly 240,000 Ukrainians under a policy known as Uniting for Ukraine, or U4U, that allowed Americans to sponsor Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s invasion. More than 20,000 Ukrainians who flew to Mexico at the start of the war were also allowed into the U.S. under the parole authority, which allows officials to offer temporary work permits and deportation protections to migrants on humanitarian grounds.
If recipients failed to leave the U.S., the message read, they would “be subject to potential law enforcement actions that will result in your removal from the United States,” unless they have received another immigration status.
The notice also said recipients would lose their work permits once their parole status was revoked, and encouraged them to sign up for self-deportation using a government smartphone app known as CBP Home that the Trump administration recently repurposed.
“Again, DHS is terminating your parole. Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you,” the notice warned. “Please depart the United States immediately.”
But when CBS News asked representatives for DHS about the notice, they said it had been sent by accident.
“A message was sent in error to some Ukrainians under the U4U program,” DHS said in a statement to CBS News Friday. “The U4U parole program has not been terminated.”
The agency also took the step of retracting the email Friday, writing to recipients in a second email: “(Y)ou may have received an email notification titled ‘Notice of Termination of Parole.’ The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent this email to you in error. No action will be taken with respect to your parole.”
It is unclear how many Ukrainians received the government’s notice.
PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images 
While the Trump administration has not formally terminated the Uniting for Ukraine program, it suspended admissions under the policy, as well as status renewals for those already in the U.S.
Despite the Trump administration’s statement that it sent the termination notices inadvertently, advocates continue to worry officials could still attempt to strip Ukrainians of their legal status in the future.
As part of its sweeping crackdown on illegal and legal immigration, the Trump administration has moved to dismantle Biden administration immigration programs that relied on the parole authority.
It has discontinued a sponsorship initiative for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, and warned the more than half-a-million migrants who came to the U.S. under the policy that they would face arrest and deportation if they did not self-deport by April 24.
