“Oaxaca is a very poor place, and there were not many things to eat because there is no money. There is no work there, and there, we planted milpa and pigweed. There wasn’t much else to eat besides that.

I was a little girl and we didn't have many clothes or shoes. When I was 14 years old, I decided to come here because children’s life was very sad there. I travelled with my brother.

The first time I came, it was raining a lot, so we were walking in mud and our clothes were very wet, so we walked and we arrived. We almost made it to where we were going to get to catch a ride to get here to California, and migration caught us and threw us back and so we went back again.

We met the one who crosses the people in the desert, and we decided to come with him. Fifty or 40, yeah, there were a lot of us.

From there, the coyote, he took us there in the desert, and we walked three nights and three days, and during the day, we rested and at night we walked. Many people get tired and die in the desert. I saw human hair and human bones.

We felt tired, we were hungry, and very thirsty too, because we didn't bring much water.

We arrived in Arizona.

From there, the van came to pick us up. We were like more than 20 people that got on that van.
We were packed on top of each other and there are people who are bigger than us and they are heavy, so when we got there, we had a lot of pain in our feet, we had blisters, like pus inside our feet.

I think it was more than 5 hours. I arrived in Oxnard, and from there, they brought me to Watsonville.

Yes, we felt— the first thing was mostly sadness. Leaving my family, like mom, it's very sad to remember. It's very sad to remember that, but for us it was very difficult to get out our village and walk in the desert, and we got there.

When I started working I was able to help my mother. I was able to send her a little bit of money.

I've been here for more than 15 years and I couldn't see my mom again because she died. It's been a long time since I could see her, and she died.

The hope I have is that someday they will give us papers so we can go back to Oaxaca to see my dad because my dad is still alive, and that is the hope I have. That is my hope.

My name is Alma and I am a farmworker.

There is a national child care crisis, and programs are looking for ways to help alleviate some of the issues families are facing when trying to secure child care.

Some parents are needing to wait between nine and 12 months to secure a spot on a waiting list. To help solve this problem, programs are turning towards education for refugees and immigrants to add them into the workforce.

“As refugees and immigrants come into our economy, we want them to enter into jobs right way,” said Deborah Young, the co-founder of Pamoja Early Childhood Education. “There are 27,000 teachers that are missing, so this is a great match. We have a huge talent force, and we have a need for them.”

The Pamoja Early Childhood Education workforce program is made up of refugees and immigrants from all over the world to serve as a pipeline for new early childhood educators.

Fatima Jafari, who is from Afghanistan, is in the program.

“For two years, I have studied early childhood education, and I am working as a teacher in the center,” Jafari said. “The program is so important for all the women in my community. They come into the United States, and they need to learn to communicate with the children and how to live in the United States in a new environment. They also need to learn to grow their kids in a new country.”

According to Child care Aware of America research, it shows that nearly 9,000 daycares closed in 37 states between 2019 and 2021. While there are also less day cares, child care center costs increased across the country at an average rate of 41%.

For this reason, Pamoja Early Childhood is utilizing refugees and immigrants by not only giving them the education to start a new life in this country but to help decrease the childcare worker shortage and promote diverse people in the industry.

“We need childcare, and we don’t have enough childcare. We don’t have enough childcare workers, mostly because we do not give professional wages or living wages even,” Young said. “Really investing in our refugees and our immigrants to get higher education, to get the credentials and knowledge and get into the workforce, they’re contributing in one way or another to our society, let’s get them to contribute in ways that creates the whole increase in well-being for everybody in our communities.”

According to the CDC, 94% of childcare workers are female and 40% of those are people of color.

“Right now, almost two years ago, I started the study of the children,” Jafari said. “One of my children is a little bit delayed, but I just want to learn a lot about the behavior and learn about growing the brain for him. Also, I want to help others who have children like me, and I can help them.”

“We want childcare workers to speak the same language and look the same as the child,” Young said. “We want child identity to really be confident in who they are who their family are and what their background and historical context are. And most of the background of teachers and leadership positions look like me.”

The developers of this program believe that bringing in women of color who speak multiple languages can help provide more options for child care to the country and overcome cultural differences while also closing the work shortage gap.

SAO PAULO — Brazil’s government said on Friday it would issue temporary humanitarian visas and residency permits for Ukrainian nationals and other individuals who have been affected or displaced by the conflict with Russia.

The visas will be valid for 180 days, and arriving Ukrainians can apply for residency permits lasting two years, according to the text published in the nation’s official gazette.

Brazil will require, among other documents, a certificate attesting to the person’s clean criminal record.

Brazilian media have reported that the country has Latin America’s biggest population of Ukrainians and their descendants, ranging between 500,000 and 600,000, according to an estimate from Ukraine’s embassy.

The administration of President Jair Bolsonaro has been ambivalent about the conflict.

Bolsonaro himself expressed solidarity with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on a recent visit and has said Brazil will retain a neutral stance in the conflict.

At the same time, Brazil voted to condemn the invasion in the meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, more than 1 million refugees have fled the violence and crossed into neighboring countries.

According to the United Nations refugee agency, 649,000 people have fled to Poland, 144,000 to Hungary, 103,000 to Moldova, 90,000 to Slovakia, and 57,000 to Romania.

In the U.S., the Biden administration said Ukrainians who are already in the states would remain in the country under a form of humanitarian relief.

Earlier this week, Airbnb said it would provide temporary, accessible housing for up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees fleeing the country.

BROOMFIELD, Colo. — The United States evacuated more than 84,000 Afghan refugees since troops left the country last year. It’s the largest U.S. resettlement effort since 1975 after the Vietnam war.

Resettling these families is a costly endeavor and takes months for each family. It’s often resettlement agencies that find them homes.

These agencies are given a one-time payment from the federal government of $2,275 for each refugee. That’s for housing and other necessities, but after that, refugee families are largely on their own.

“We finally made it to the U.S. by the support of the U.S. Army and the U.S. government, and we are here now to start our new life,” said Dr. Mirwais Baheej.

Six months ago, they were forced to leave their home and life in Afghanistan behind.

“We were employed. We have good lives, everything in life. But when the regime changed and the Taliban came, we had to flee,” said Baheej.

Baheej worked with U.S. troops for several years. He and his family were evacuating at the airport the day of the suicide bombing.

“Suddenly just a blast happened, and it did change everything. It was a horrible moment. But just in a few seconds, I thought that everyone was lost,” said Baheej.

Three of his family members died. His daughter and niece—10-year-old Shadukt and 9-year-old Hada—were both badly hurt. The girls were separated from the family and airlifted to Qatar and Germany for surgery.

“I had been 12 days in coma,” said Shadukt Baheej.

Shadukt woke up in a United States hospital alone.

“It was so hard in the hospital because we were like alone and I missed my family so much, and I was always crying about them. It is hard to be like far from your country, from your family. Like you’d feel sad if that happened to you,” she said.

Hada didn’t find out her father died until weeks later. It took the family two months to be reunited at a military base in the U.S.

“When we came, we just had a backpack. We had nothing left with us,” said Baheej. “You are beginning the life from scratch, from zero.”

They were moved to Colorado, where they have some extended family, and a resettlement agency received money for housing and clothing to help support the family.

This one-time help only amounts to a few thousand dollars, and this family has 17 people needing food and shelter.

“We need to work to finance the needs of the family, which quite a lot,” said Baheej. “You are unfamiliar to the system. You, you, you've not done your education here. So, everything is quite new.”

It’s been nearly six months since the bombing, and while the nation may have moved past the news of refugees arriving, the tens of thousands of families now here are still struggling.

The Baheejs and their extended family are still trying to find permanent housing they can afford and work similar to their high-skilled jobs back home.

“I have worked at the government and high-level positions in the economic sector and managerial and leadership positions,” said Baheej. “I have to start from some point, and you know, to be, you know, economically active member of the society, which is what I want to be.”

But, this family found a small safety net—one that came in a pint-sized serving. Troop 68352 is embracing the girls and their entire family.

“It's fun, and you can feel empowered and you can make friends,” said Shadukht of joining the troop.

They’re raising money for the Baheejs at their cookie booths as Baheej looks for jobs. It’s also giving the family and the girls a doorway to American life.

“It is a good, you know, a good place for them to forget the things that that happen to them and then they integrate to the society and to a normal life,” said Baheej.

"To see what this particular troop, these volunteers and their families have done to embrace this family and give them community is amazing, and I hope that folks take away that you can make a difference and there is something we can all do to help," said Leanna Clark, the CEO of Girl Scouts of Colorado.

The family still needs a lot of help and support, but this small bite of normalcy is feeding their hope for a better tomorrow: an example of what so many refugees are searching for months after leaving their country.

“We will have a good life, hopefully. It takes time. I am really optimistic,” said Baheej.

You can help the Baheej family by donating HERE.

You can also buy cookies from the girls from their digital cookie booth, HERE.

On a cold and miserable day at Medyka border crossing in Poland, Newsy saw what war does to families.

Most of the refugees are women. Many have left their men behind. 

Irina Diduk is from the western city of Lviv. It took her more than 24 hours to get to the border with her mother, daughter and their dog Rocky. 

"We don't sleep because we have to move every time," Diduk said.

She told Newsy she doesn't know where they will go now but is clear why she left. 

"It's very simple," she said. "Because Putin start war in our country and we can't understand what he will do. You don't know what he is going to do. No one will know because it's [a] crazy man."

There are fewer men in the crowds. 

Max is at the border because he's 17 — just young enough to be permitted to leave. 

"I'm feeling pretty tired. It has been nonstop walking for the past 30 hours. I haven't slept yet. So it's not exactly the most pleasant feeling in the world," he said. "Probably 9 kilometer from the border we moved on our feet."

Across the border, back home in Ukraine, fathers, sons and brothers are staying behind to fight. 

Any man between the ages of 18 and 60 is prohibited from leaving Ukraine and encouraged to sign up. 

Across Ukraine, they're taking up weapons, strapping on fatigues and body armor, preparing to defend and possibly die. 

The worst of the fighting inside Ukraine has been between soldiers. But residential buildings in Kyiv have been hit. 

The choice facing families is to take refuge in places like metro stations or get out, even if it means breaking up the family.  

There's some comfort in Poland. A bowl of hot coffee and sympathetic border authorities. But the pain of war and the pain of separation is written on each and every face.

Newsy is the nation’s only free 24/7 national news network. You can find Newsy using your TV’s digital antenna or stream for free. See all the ways you can watch Newsy here. 

MEDYKA, Poland —

Dragging suitcases and carrying children, tens of thousands of Ukrainians rushed to the borders Saturday as invading Russian troops pressed their advance into Ukraine, moving toward the country's capital of Kyiv.

"The numbers and the situation is changing minute by minute," said Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "At least 150,000 people have fled, they are refugees outside of Ukraine. ... At least 100,000 people — but probably a much larger number — have been displaced inside Ukraine."

"This may go up, it’s changing every minute," said Shabia Mantoo, the spokeswoman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "It’s very fluid and changing by the hour."

The agency expects up to 4 million Ukrainians could flee if the situation deteriorates further.

Those arriving were mostly women, children and the elderly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy banned men of military age from 18 to 60 from leaving. Some Ukrainian men were heading back into Ukraine from Poland to take up arms against the Russian forces.

In contrast to other conflicts around the globe, Russia's unprovoked attack on the Western-looking democracy has ignited a huge outpouring of support for the fleeing Ukrainians. This included an unconditional welcome from nations like Poland and Hungary that did not want to accept those fleeing conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

Regular people were also opening up their homes to refugees and volunteering at welcome centers. In Poland, a Facebook page was formed where people were offered rides in private cars from the border and other help.

Volunteers even came from elsewhere in Europe to pick up refugees, among them a German couple from Hamburg who held up a sign at the Polish border town of Medyka saying they could take three people home with them.

"Our country is not doing anything, and we felt we needed to do something," said Tanja Schwarz, 51.

Despite the goodwill, the crush of people became a very real ordeal.

Jeremy Myers, from Manchester, England, was on vacation in Ukraine with his Ukrainian girlfriend when the war started. They fled Kyiv and waited 23 hours in a fenced-off area where there was no food or water and which was controlled by armed guards on the Ukrainian side.

He witnessed people fighting, getting crushed and a woman who fainted.

"We saw several people get injured, there were no toilets, there was no medical assistance," he said. "You had to stand where you were because if you didn’t you lost your place in line."

One family from Chernivtsi in western Ukraine waited 20 hours before being able to cross the border into Siret in northern Romania. Natalia Murinik, 14, cried as she described saying goodbye to grandparents who couldn’t leave the country.

"It really hurt, I want to go home," she said.

The largest numbers were arriving in Poland, where 2 million Ukrainians have already settled to work in recent years, driven away by Russia’s first incursion into Ukraine when it annexed Crimea in 2014 and seeking opportunities in the booming economy of the European Union neighbor.

Poland’s government said Saturday that more than 100,000 Ukrainians had crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border in the past 48 hours alone. Poland declared its border open to fleeing Ukrainians, even for those without official documents, and dropped its requirement to show a negative COVID-19 test.

The line of vehicles waiting to enter Poland at Medyka stretched many miles into Ukraine.

A woman from Lviv named Lena described seeing toys and heavy bags along the way that people had abandoned. She was bringing her four children to safety in Poland and planned to return to join her husband. Like other Ukrainians returning home as their country fights Russia, she would only give her first name.

Even Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of Europe's most anti-migrant leaders, traveled to the border town of Beregsurany, where he said Hungary was accepting all citizens and legal residents of Ukraine.

"We’re letting everyone in," Orban said.

On Saturday, Poland sent a hospital train to pick up those wounded in the war in Mostyska, in western Ukraine, and bring them to the Polish capital of Warsaw for treatment. The hospital train left the border town of Przemysl with five carriages to transport the wounded and four others stocked with humanitarian aid for Ukraine’s Lviv district.

Mantoo said most Ukrainians were heading to neighboring Poland, Moldova, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia but some even fled into Belarus — from which some Russian forces entered Ukraine. Some planned to head further on to other countries in Europe.

The border post in Siret was crowded with Ukrainians on Saturday and humanitarian groups set up tents a few miles in and offered food and drink to those arriving.

Despite the welcome, teenager Natalia Murinik's family didn't know where they were going next.

"We don’t have a clue. We’re waiting for our friends, and then we’ll think," she said.

___

Gera reported from Warsaw. Bela Szandelszky in Beregsurany, Hungary; Florent Bajrami in Medyka, Poland; Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Stephen McGrath in Siret, Romania, contributed.

BOSTON —

Haseena Niazi had pinned her hopes of getting her fiancé out of Afghanistan on a rarely used immigration provision.

The 24-year-old Massachusetts resident was almost certain his application for humanitarian parole would get approved by the U.S. government, considering the evidence he provided on the threats from the Taliban he received while working on women's health issues at a hospital near Kabul.

But this month, the request was summarily denied, leaving the couple reeling after months of anxiety.

"He had everything they wanted," said Niazi, a green card holder originally from Afghanistan. "It doesn't make any sense why they'd reject it. It's like a bad dream. I still can't believe it."

Federal immigration officials have issued denial letters to hundreds of Afghans seeking temporary entry into the country for humanitarian reasons in recent weeks, to the dismay of Afghans and their supporters. By doing so, immigrant advocates say, the Biden administration has failed to honor its promise to help Afghans who were left behind after the U.S. military withdrew from the country in August and the Taliban took control.

"It was a huge disappointment," said Caitlin Rowe, a Texas attorney who said she recently received five denials, including one for an Afghan police officer who helped train U.S. troops and was beaten by the Taliban. "These are vulnerable people who genuinely thought there was hope, and I don't think there was."

Since the U.S. withdrawal, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has received more than 35,000 applications for humanitarian parole, of which it has denied about 470 and conditionally approved more than 140, Victoria Palmer, an agency spokesperson, said this week.

The little-known program, which doesn't provide a path to lawful permanent residence in the country, typically receives fewer than 2,000 requests annually from all nationalities, of which USCIS approves an average of about 500, she said.

Palmer also stressed humanitarian parole is generally reserved for extreme emergencies and not intended to replace the refugee admissions process, "which is the typical pathway for individuals outside of the United States who have fled their country of origin and are seeking protection."

The U.S. government, meanwhile, continues to help vulnerable Afghans, evacuating more than 900 American citizens and residents and another 2,200 Afghans since the military withdrawal. The state department said it expects to help resettle as many as 95,000 people from Afghanistan this fiscal year, a process that includes rigorous background checks and vaccinations.

Many of them, however, had been whisked out of Afghanistan before the U.S. left. Now, USCIS is tasked with this new wave of humanitarian parole applications and has ramped up staffing to consider them.

The agency said in a statement that requests are reviewed on an individual basis, with consideration given to immediate relatives of Americans and Afghans airlifted out.

And while USCIS stressed that parole shouldn't replace refugee processing, immigrant advocates argue that isn't a viable option for Afghans stuck in their country due to a disability or hiding from the Taliban. Even those able to get out of Afghanistan, they say, may be forced to wait years in refugee camps, which isn't something many can afford to do.

Mohammad, who asked that his last name not be used out of fear for his family's safety, said his elder brother, who used to work for international organizations, is among them. He has been in hiding since the Taliban came looking for him following the U.S. withdrawal, Mohammad said.

On a recent visit to the family home, Taliban members took his younger brother instead and held him more than a week for ransom, he said. Now, Mohammad, a former translator for U.S. troops in Afghanistan who lives in California with a special immigration status, is seeking parole for this brother, too. He hopes a conditional approval letter can get them a spot on one of the U.S. evacuation flights still running out of the country.

"I can provide him housing. I can provide him everything," he said. "Let them come here."

Immigrant advocates began filing humanitarian parole applications for Afghans in August in a last-ditch effort to get them on U.S. evacuation flights out of the country before the withdrawal.

In some cases, it worked, and word spread among immigration attorneys that parole, while typically used in extreme emergencies, might be a way out, said Kyra Lilien, director of immigration legal services at Jewish Family & Community Services in California's East Bay.

Soon, attorneys began filing thousands of parole applications for Afghans.

When the U.S. immigration agency created a website specifically to address these applications, Lilien said she thought it was a sign of hope. By November, however, the agency had posted a list of narrow criteria for Afghan applicants and held a webinar telling attorneys that parole is typically granted only if there's evidence someone faces "imminent severe harm."

A few weeks later, the denial letters began arriving. Lilien has received more than a dozen but no approvals.

"Once the U.S. packed up and left, anyone who was left behind has only one choice, and that is to pursue this archaic refugee channel," she said. "It is just so angering that it took USCIS so long to be clear about that."

Wogai Mohmand, an attorney who helps lead the Afghan-focused Project ANAR, said that the group has filed thousands of applications and that since the U.S. troop withdrawal, has seen only denials.

The despair has led some immigration attorneys to give up on filing parole applications altogether. In Massachusetts, the International Institute of New England is holding off filing new applications until it hears on those that are pending after receiving a flurry of denials.

Chiara St. Pierre, an attorney for the refugee resettlement agency, said she feels clients like Niazi are facing an "unwinnable" battle.

For Niazi's fiancé, they had provided copies of written threats sent to the hospital where he works as a medical technician and threatening text messages he said came from Taliban members, she said. It wasn't enough.

A redacted copy of the denial letter provided by St. Pierre lists the USCIS criteria released in November but doesn't specify why the agency rejected the application, which had been filed in August.

For now, Niazi says her fiancé is living and working far from Kabul as they weigh their options. They could potentially wait until Niazi becomes an American citizen so she can try to bring him here on a fiancé visa, but that would take years.

"He can't wait that long. It's a miracle every day that he's alive," Niazi said. "I'm feeling like every door is closing in on him."

___

Taxin reported from Orange County, California.

Three months after Afghanistan’s capital fell to the Taliban, Zahra Rezaie, an Afghan refugee, took part in a Shark Tank-like competition to help her business grow now that she has had to leave her home country.

"Two months ago, when the Taliban arrived in Afghanistan, we were forced to leave," Rezaie said.

She was forced to leave her home and her business behind.

"You lose everything that you have, you tried for some years for your business. But now, you should leave everything to stay alive," Rezaie said.

After spending more than a day at the airport in Afghanistan trying to get out, Rezaie got into Abu Dhabi. Now, she is in Albania.

"I was a little depressed because we are far from our country and family," Rezaie said.

However, she feels safe as she starts to rebuild her business in a new country.

"My company is about trading and handcrafts," Rezaie told sister station KOCO 5.

To help her further her company, she entered a Shark Tank-like competition to pitch her business, where she makes curtains, cushions and carpets. That competition is based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, through the Peace Through Business program.

Rezaie took second place and won $3,000. Sister station KOCO 5 asked her how she will use the money.

"I want to work as much as I can in marketing. I have two women to train in designing, and a professional photographer and website developer," she said.

She added that she is thankful for the Peace Through Business program.

Rezaie told sister station KOCO 5 that now in Afghanistan, women cannot own certain businesses. She thinks that her type of business might be able to survive because textiles can be done from home.

Sister station KOCO 5 asked Rezaie if she plans to go back to Afghanistan or stay in Albania. Well, it might neither. Razaie said she hopes to get a visa and come to the United States.

The program's website can be seen here.

Watch the video above for the full story.