August 24 marks the six-month anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022. Over 6.7 million Ukrainians have fled their country as refugees and another 6.6 million are internally displaced. The EU was fast-acting to protect refugees streaming out of Ukraine. Just over a week after the beginning of the invasion, the Council of the EU unanimously adopted the Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) for Ukrainians. Like the EU, the United States also reacted quickly at the start of the war and implemented Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Ukraine and the sponsorship program Uniting for Ukraine (U4U).

Both the United States and the EU must face how their actions are discriminatory based on the populations they are willing to accept as refugees or parolees through specialized pathways. Compared to their responses to the Syrian and Afghan refugee crises, where the United States and the EU have not mobilized a robust response, their reactions to the Ukrainian war demonstrate that they are capable of creative solutions to migration crises and raise the following question: why aren’t they willing to implement those strategies for non-European populations?

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