U.S. sends 50 people to Ukraine amid war with Russia : NPR

Flames and smoke billow from buildings during massive Russian drone and missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital in July 2025, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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The United States has deported 50 people to Ukraine this week, a Ukrainian border official said Tuesday, in what appears to be the largest such expulsion from the United States since the country was at war with Russia.

The plane landed Monday morning near the Polish border. Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported a total of 105 Ukrainians, including 13 in the last quarter of 2024, according to the latest data available in ICE’s publicly available tracker.

The Trump administration initially wanted to send 80 people on the flight, according to Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States. This original list also included at least one person whom Ukraine had previously been unable to claim as a citizen of the country.

It was not immediately clear why only 50 people out of a group of 80 ended up in Ukraine.

Immigration lawyers have expressed concern that those deported to Ukraine could be drafted to fight in the war. In Ukraine, all men aged 25 to 60 can be recruited, although some women and young people have also volunteered. While U.S. law permits deportations, including to countries where people are not natives, domestic and international laws prohibit deportations to places where a person might face violence, persecution, or torture.

The Trump administration has negotiated agreements with countries with notorious human rights records or facing conflict, including South Sudan, Libya, Eswatini, Rwanda and El Salvador, to receive deportees from the United States, in an effort to accelerate mass deportations.

Six of the eight men deported to South Sudan over the summer remain there, according to their lawyers, while the Associated Press reports that those sent to other countries have been imprisoned there.

“Currently, border guards ensure their registration at the border for entry into Ukraine in accordance with the rules established by law,” Andrii Demchenko, spokesperson for the State Border Service of Ukraine, told NPR. “It should be noted that Ukraine accepts its citizens anyway.”

The spokesperson said Ukraine would accept all of its own citizens deported from the United States.

The embassy did not respond to questions about what would happen to those deported to the country.

“It should be noted that deportation is a widely used legal mechanism provided for under the immigration laws of most countries around the world,” Stefanishyna said in a statement provided to NPR. “This is a routine procedure applied to all foreign nationals and stateless persons who violate the conditions of their stay in the United States, regardless of their nationality.”

Migrant first profiled by NPR fought against immediate deportation

Eric Lee, an immigration lawyer who accompanied a client on the flight, said the detainees include people who have lived in the United States since they were children.

“Many have spouses and children who are U.S. citizens. Some don’t even speak Ukrainian, and others are not even Ukrainian citizens, having been born in the Soviet Union before Ukraine existed as a separate country,” Lee said in an interview.

One of Lee’s clients, Roman Surovtsev, was recently transferred to several detention centers in Texas in preparation for deportation to Ukraine, even as his lawyers continue to fight his deportation in court.

According to Justice Department court filings, the administration had intended to put him on the flight. NPR confirmed that he was ultimately not deported after an immigration court stayed his deportation hours before the flight while his case was reopened in immigration court.

Surovtsev, who lived in Dallas with his wife and two children, American citizens, was born in the Soviet Union. He came to the United States as a refugee, but lost his green card as a teenager when he pleaded guilty to carjacking in California.

As NPR previously reported, the United States previously unsuccessfully attempted to deport Surovtsev to Ukraine, which was unable to provide the travel documents necessary for deportation. For years, Surovtsev conducted annual checks with Immigration and Customs Enforcement until he was arrested during his visit in August. ICE then attempted to give him deportation papers, but the papers were in Ukrainian, a language he does not speak.

His team of lawyers was able to overturn his conviction and proceed to reinstate his green card. Surovtsev is nevertheless still in detention.

U.S. District Judge Ada Brown, appointed by President Trump, initially blocked Surovtsev’s impeachment earlier this month until January 13, but reversed her decision days later, to the surprise of Surovtsev’s lawyers.

“He will likely receive his green card again very soon. And he also has not had the opportunity to express his fear of being deported to an active war zone,” Lee said.

A DHS spokesperson said in a statement that Surovtesev had already received due process.

“He received due process and was deported by an immigration judge on November 4, 2014, more than a decade ago,” the spokesperson wrote. “Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, if you break the law, you will face consequences. Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the United States”