Sen. Lisa Murkowski emphasized her support for Alaska’s Ukrainian refugees at a meeting today in Delta Junction.
In recent months, the Trump administration has suspended programs that support their stay in the U.S. and their paths to employment. Trump also signalled this month that he’d like to deport hundreds of thousands of refugees.
Murkowski said she wants to keep them here.
“To think that families would be sent back, might be forced to return to a very, very unsafe situation. It’s not where I think we want to be,” she said
Delta Junction is home to about 150 Ukrainian refugees. Many joined the town’s pre-existing Slavic community after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
As she toured a potato field tended to by several Ukrainian families, community members told the senator that they’re anxious about whether or not they’ll have to return to their war-torn homeland. Some families have bought land and have started to build their own homes in the community.
Murkowski said she’s hearing reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials seeking information about Alaska’s Ukrainian community.
She said she’s sympathetic to the community’s concerns, and that Ukrainian refugees are strengthening Alaska’s workforce and economy.
“It's hard to find workers, and they have been exemplary in the work that they do,” she said. “One is in construction, and he's trying to build some homes, and he has great workers within the Ukrainian community and wants to keep them.”
The senator said she’s worried about the direction the current administration is headed with refugees from Ukraine, as well as with other people who have fled to the United States from conflicts in Afghanistan, Haiti, Venezuela, and South Sudan.
Murkowski said she doesn’t know what will happen with the refugee resettlement programs that allow the families to stay.