Thanks to the hospitality of strangers and volunteers like Paul and Rose Chorney of Auburn, California, a few Ukrainian families have found refuge.  

"There are going to be a lot more Ukrainian families coming, however they can," said Paul Chorney, whose family immigrated to the U.S. from Ukraine when he was 18. Now his church is helping those displaced by the Russian invasion.  

"The absence of a clear signal from Washington on how many it is willing to accept and questions about whether Europeans will get preferential treatment over refugees from Asia, Africa and the Middle East have created deep uncertainty, leaving displaced Ukrainians to make their way to the border and hope for help from private sponsors like the Chorneys," Jordan writes.  

As a result of cuts to the program over the years, I told her, "Our refugee program is unable to meet this moment." (I will be speaking with Miriam this Thursday, March 24, for an event sponsored by Zócalo Public Square. Register here.) 

Pressure continues to build for the Biden administration to provide clear, legal pathways for Ukrainians to find asylum in the U.S. Conor Finnegan of ABC News reports that the administration is considering ways to fast-track bringing Ukrainians, including expediting visa processing for immediate family members of U.S. citizens.  

With the refugee resettlement system decimated under the Trump administration and backlogs continuing to grow, John Holland and Courtney Rozen of Bloomberg Law explain that even Ukrainians with ties to the U.S. face a "visa nightmare."  

Meanwhile, Daina Beth Solomon of Reuters reports that Russians seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border "are frustrated they are not getting in like Ukrainians are, despite leaving their homeland over the invasion of Ukraine." 

Welcome to Monday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected]. And if you know others who’d like to receive the Notes, please spread the word. They can subscribe here. 

10 MILLION — The U.N. announced that an estimated 10 million Ukrainians have been displaced since the start of the war, reports Axios’ Rebecca Falconer. Jamey Keaten of the Associated Press notes that the upward trend is heading "toward the levels of displacement from Syria’s devastating war, which has driven about 13 million people from their homes both in the country and abroad." That’s alarming — especially without a robust refugee and asylum system to support them. And while Krakow, the second- largest city in Poland, is offering refuge to Ukrainians, Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska of Al Jazeera reports that the city is quickly running out of space. 

TITLE 42 — Sunday marked the two-year anniversary of the implementation of Title 42. And there is no clear sign of the administration phasing out or reversing the public health policy any time soon, despite pressure from advocates to do so, per Rafael Bernal and Rebecca Beitsch of The Hill. "Every day that this policy is in effect, it actually endangers human lives, harms public health, bolsters racist tropes and damages the CDC’s [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] credibility and the administration’s credibility. It also violates U.S. and international law," said Eleanor Acer, director of refugee protection at Human Rights First.  

60 VOTES TO HOPE — In their SCOTUS confirmation hearing curtain raiser, Politico’s Marianne Levine and Burgess Everett spent some time with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who is "now engaging with [Sen. John] Cornyn [R-Texas] and Sen. Thom Tillis [R-North Carolina] to see if he can get an immigration deal." The real question, per Durbin: "is there anything we can do on the subject of immigration that can win 60 votes in the Senate? We’re going to test that." Over the weekend, after news of Durbin’s statement, I wrote that "the path to hope requires 60 votes." It’s a path that brings clarity to the debate for the public, which in the long term, "leads to a larger coalition of Americans supporting immigrants and immigration." 

AFGHAN WOMEN — In an op-ed for The Chicago Reporter, Nadine Naber, professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Global Asian Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, calls on Americans to empathize with — and support — Afghan refugee women who have fled their homes after the fall of Kabul. Not only are they suffering physically, Naber writes, but emotionally and mentally, too. Afghan women "are protecting loved ones while they are personally suffering. They are caring for children, taking neighbors to see doctors, and feeding people while they strive to care for themselves." To support them on a national scale, Congress must pass the Afghan Adjustment Act.