War in Ukraine: Immigration Attorney Andy Semotiuk Discusses the Humanitarian Crisis

Hello everyone and welcome to CBAs @theBar, a podcast where we have unscripted conversations with our guests about legal news, events, topics, and other stories that we think you’re going to find interesting. I’m your host today, Trisha Rich of Holland Knight and Co-hosting the podcast. With me today is our fearless executive director, Jennifer Byrne, the CLE, director of the Chicago Bar Association. Jen, thanks for joining me today.

Thanks, Trish. Thanks for subbing in for John today.

Somebody has to.

This will become our show before we know it.

And we’re all better off for that. Right, and joining me and Jen today is attorney Andy Semotiuk. Andy is a Toronto-based immigration attorney who has assisted more than 10,000 clients on various immigration matters and other legal problems. But more importantly for today’s episode, Andy, as Ukrainian is very involved in international political issues and is here on the podcast today to discuss the war that Russia is waging on Ukraine. Andy is also the author of A Promise, kept a tribute to a Mother’s love, which we’ll be talking about later today. Andy, thank you for joining us today. It’s great to have you.

Happy to be with you. Thank you.

Thank you. So Andy, before you start, I want to sort of set the stage for those listeners who may not be entirely familiar with the history between Russia and Ukraine or the conflict that is happening now. So I just want to take a couple of minutes to do that. The relationship between the two countries dates back on until at least the ninth century, but for our purposes today, I’m going to start at 1991 with the breakup of the Soviet Union. Following that, Ukraine and Russia emerged as two independent countries, but as former Soviet republics, the countries have deep, social, cultural, and even economic ties to each other. Indeed, to this day, many Russians view the Ukrainian capital of KI as the birthplace of their country. In 1997, a comprehensive treaty between the two nations affirmed the location and the integrity of the Ukrainian borders, which Russia had already guaranteed.

(02:19)
In 1990 four’s Budapest memorandum that 1997 treaty expired on March 31st, 2019. During 2014, Russia took advantage of political turmoil in Ukraine to seize and establish control over Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, which much of the world did and still does consider to be an unlawful occupation. It was the first time since World War II that a European state annex the territory of another, and indeed outside of a few Russian loyalist nations like North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela, Russia’s actions were universally condemned. Since then, the two countries have been at war and Ukraine’s Eastern regions. To date, that part of the conflict has taken an estimated 14,000 lives and displaced 1.5 million Ukrainians secessionists in Eastern Ukraine supported by Russia declared themselves as independent regions and join the war against Ukraine. In April, 2019, a former comedian and a now familiar face to us now, president Zelinsky was elected by a large majority as president of Ukraine, based in large part on his campaign, promises to make peace with Russia and restore Eastern Ukraine regions to the country.

(03:39)
Since Alinsky’s election and throughout 2021 and 2022, Russia’s president Putin has been actively trying to disrupt Ukraine’s attempts to shore up alliances with the United States and other NATO nations. During this same time period, Putin began building up troops along the Russian border. While he was doing that, Putin denied that he was going to invade Ukraine, but for diplomats and leaders all over the world, the writing was on the wall. In January of this year, Putin issued an ultimatum demanding a guarantee from NATO that it would not expand further eastward, which Putin views as a threat to Russian security. Specifically, Putin wants Ukraine and other former Soviet states to be banned from ever joining nato, which one Russian diplomat famously called a four letter word. Although those guarantees did not come by most, if not all accounts, NATO has no intention of allowing Ukraine to join as a member nation leading many people to believe Putin’s demands were pretextual and for Putin provided a reason to invade Ukraine, which he ultimately did.

(04:48)
On February 24th, 2022, a full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began, which is still ongoing. That night, Russian missiles hit multiple military and civilian targets inside Ukraine and Russian armored convoys began crossing the border in a full scale and unlawful invasion. Now a comprehensive Russian war is going on in Ukraine and what is likely going to be the largest conflict in Europe in nearly 80 years since the end of World War ii. Every day we see news of Russia dropping missiles on Ukraine too often on what are clearly civilian targets, and most recently, over this last weekend on a school. In the meantime, Zelinsky is pulling together as many resources as he can to defend Ukraine. Make no mistake about it, this war is one that Russia started and it is unlawful. Not only is it unusual to say the least for one country to so boldly attack another country’s political independence and territorial sovereignty, it’s inconsistent with the principles enshrined in the UN charter, which clearly states, and I quote, all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. It’s also now clear that Russia is committing war crimes against the Ukrainian people, which include rape summary, execution of civilians and unlawful violence and threats against civilians. Along with as many as 200 targeted attacks on Ukrainian hospitals and clinics, president Biden and other authorities around the world have declared Russia’s actions as a genocide. It is under that backdrop that we are here today. Andy, thank you for joining us. Let me first start by asking you what I missed. Is there anything I missed that you think would provide important background information for our listeners?

Well, that’s an extraordinary summary I have to say. It’s very well done. I might throw in a few things. A good starting point is 1917, although I’m not going to go into much detail about it, but Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union from 1917 onward. So you have 75 years of Ukraine being sort of under Russian domination in the Soviet Union, and before that you have 350 years of Ukraine being dominated by sars Russia from the middle 16 hundreds onward. So 1917 to we run through until the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, shall we say, there was a ratification of Ukraine, meaning, although on paper, Ukraine was a sovereign nation, in reality, it was being ratified and the language was forbidden or oppressed, and people were taught to learn Russian and not Ukrainian and the churches were not allowed and stuff like that with a demise of the Soviet Union in 1991.

(07:51)
By the way, Ukraine was the major republic of the Soviet Union, non-US Republic, that essentially when it left the Soviet Union essentially that meant the Soviet Union fell apart, the empire fell apart. Putin has often referred to the demise of the Soviet Union as the biggest tragedy of the 20th century, and for him it was indeed he was the former secret service agent, KGB, that rose to power under Yeltsin and ultimately became the authoritarian dictator that he is today. Three important factors in this ongoing drama were number one, the UN charter, and Ukraine was a founding member of the UN Charter because the Soviet Union back then, namely, basically Russia felt it needed a second party as part of its membership so that it’s not isolated. And so they advocated for Ukraine to get membership, and so Ukraine joined the UN right from the beginning.

(09:02)
And so this stuff that you referred to earlier, Trish, about the UN charter applied to Ukraine and Russia. The second point, and probably we’ll talk a little more about it, is the Helsinki Accords. Well, might as well say something about that right now. Look, the world and especially Europe, lived through two world wars. In the first World War, they lost something like 30 million people, and in the second World War they lost 50 million people. And those wars were all about boundaries In Europe, the Helsinki Accords at the behest of the former Soviet Union were reached to secure the boundaries of Europe so that they would never have that issue again of a state invading another state and not honoring the boundaries that are the defining boundaries of the countries of Europe. So Helsinki, which was in the 1970s, was the first sort of place where, and you mentioned in your introduction that for 80 years nobody invaded anybody.

(10:17)
And then all of a sudden in this year, well actually in 2014 with Russia invaded Crimea, and the other important historical fact was the Budapest Accord, which we probably will have to talk about later when we talk about legalities. I will just add this one other thing, which is Putin has said he’s pursuing peace, but his view of peace is pursuing peace by piece in Ukraine and like a crocodile, he’s munching away. Russia’s munching away first at Crimea, then at Donbas and Lu Hek, and now all of Ukraine. And we don’t know where this is going to stop. So that’s a little bit of a historical reflection added to your outline.

Thank you. You touched on one issue that was actually going to be my second question. How much of this is just Putin being somewhat wistful of the former USSR and wanting to put that back together?

A lot of it is his dream is to restore the Russian Empire or what was the Soviet Union, which was essentially a different form of the Russian Empire. And he’s gone back in history to Stalin as the big figure in Russian historical times. And he even yesterday, well actually is it today? Is today May 9th?

Yes, today’s May 9th.

Yeah. They’re parading out in Red square in Moscow. Yeah, because they see themselves as the fascist fighters and because of them, the World War II was won. And the irony is that the Zelensky who’s Jewish is the president of Ukraine and his family died in Auschwitz and so on, fighting the Germans. So it’s an extraordinary situation, but you’re right, there’s this wistfulness and it’s centered around cave. By the way, one thing we can all do to sort of ameliorate things is pronounce the capital of the city capital, city of Ukraine by its proper name. The Russian pronunciation is Kiev, and that’s how it was put into English. The Ukrainian pronunciation is K, K like Danny, KK, not Kiev. It’s a little thing, but it’s like identity, anybody’s identity. It’s like we don’t say P King, we say Beijing, we don’t say Lan, we say Sri Lanka, and you don’t have to go into that. I’m sure you guys have understand why.

Yeah, yeah. So one of the things that other people are talking about a lot right now is whether or not Putin’s justifications for going into Ukraine were simply pretextual all of this posturing about NATO and whether or not NATO was going to guarantee in writing if Ukraine was ever going to be a member country. And it didn’t do that fast enough I guess, for Putin. And so that seems to be the primary justification for invading Ukraine. Can you talk a little bit about whether or not you think that speculation is correct?

Well, he has NATO on his doorstep in the Baltics like they’re bordering with nato, and if his invasion of Ukraine is successful, he’s going to have NATO bordering on his Polish border. So the notion that it’s nato, that’s the problem, doesn’t make sense from that point of view. But the other thing is why do we have a nato? We have a NATO because all our countries, these countries in Europe have been Germany, France and so on. They’re all concerned about Russia and the threat that Russia poses to Europe. And today they’re even more concerned because of the war in Ukraine, and they rightfully should be, holes are deadly concerned about Russia’s threat.

I’ve noticed. Thank you. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I’ve been tracking in the news that some of the Russian action is growing increasingly closer to the Polish border. And so that has to be extremely scary for the Polish people. I would think.

Well imagine if a war broke out and let’s say Poland was dragged into it or any of the Baltic states, would NATO really be willing to go the distance with Russia? Are people in Italy and France, the soldiers there ready to fight like the Ukrainians are with Russians? Is America ready to send American soldiers, men and women to Europe, let’s say to defend Latvia or Estonia or Lithuania or Poland? These are existential questions, unpleasant existential questions. So this battle in Ukraine is all about fear. Fear of what could happen and a nuclear war.

You just mentioned some of the other countries that are in very precarious geographic locations, and I wonder if you’re seeing, I for example, were in Estonia. I would not be very comfortable with where I was physically at the moment. Are you starting to see immigration from those nations people leaving?

It’s hard for me to say because I haven’t been following that. I haven’t seen any significant evidence of it. However, I have talked to people from the Baltic communities and they have definitely expressed grave concerns and there’s an increasing sense of dread over how things are escalating. I don’t think there is an actual exodus just yet. Yeah, I think it’s too early.

I got to understand though, that those countries are concerned about being sitting ducks and geographically they’re much smaller than Ukraine is.

Yeah, it’s a nightmare for them. Because don’t forget the idea here is let’s restore the Soviet Union. Well, they were all in the Soviet Union, right, Poland, but Poland is precarious. It was part of the Warsaw

Pact. Right? And Poland I think is one of the countries that it’s borders have been in dispute historically over and over again.

Yes, that’s right. They were never settled at the end of the World War I in the Treaty of Versailles. They never could get the eastern border down exactly right. It was left undefined kind of thing. And to this day, I mean there’s Ukrainians and Poles today, love, love each other, which is amazing because only a hundred years ago or so there was a lot of hatred or trouble between those two countries. But Putin in a sense, he is done us a backhanded favor. He’s brought us together. There’s something like 2.5 million Ukrainians being hosted by polls in Poland today. I mean like, wow.

Let me ask a follow-up question on that. I read an article in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago talking about the world’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And the New York Times was making the argument that here in the United States or in Canada where you are in the so-called Western world, it was easy to have the perception that everybody thinks what Putin is doing is wrong. And the New York Times said in that article that it would be more accurate to say most of the world is disinterested, and it cited a place like India for example, and it said, India’s often cited as being the world’s largest democracy, but is also the largest buyer of Russian weapons, and they buy those weapons to keep China at bay. And so the times used India is an example of somebody that really has to maintain some sort of relationship with Russia.

(19:00)
And so for them it’s going to be in their best interest to always sort of be a neutral country in a war. The one Russia has started in Ukraine. And I wondered if you could comment on whether or not when I read that I was like, I was like, yeah, I absolutely do think everybody thinks this is upsetting and wrong and unlawful. And I was surprised to read about all of the countries and the times that they said there’s a bunch of places in the world that just could not care less and do not see this as a problem one way or another and are not going to get involved. And I wondered if you could comment on that.

I’d love to. I know what you’re talking about. I read the same article. It’s true. India is not on, shall we say, our side. Neither is China, neither are many countries in Africa. In fact, the majority of people in the world represented by those countries are probably not on our side in respect to the value we place on human life and democracy. Theirs is more an orientation towards a rules-based order. That’s where they sort of line up with us. They’re not against a rules-based order. In the case of China, they’re interested if you think Russia’s crocodile is bad, China has an interest similar nature for Taiwan. And the result is that Ukrainians and Taiwanese are brothers like this now because we realize the same thing. We’re brothers like this with Jewish communities. Well, the Jewish community like our president is Jewish. He’s a fantastic man.

(20:44)
He’s unbelievable. I could not believe the bravery, the courage that that man had. But to go back to your point, so in terms of dealing with those countries, an argument to the effect that we want to restore and respect the rules-based international order will go much further than the argument that NATO and democracies at stake. And I guess we have to live in the world we’re living in. And in the case of those countries, if they’re not on our side, well, let’s see, to what extent we can, if we’re on the same dance floor, we might as well dance together even if we’re not partners, so to speak.

Well, and speaking to just some of the international laws that are implicated, because you’re talking about a rules-based order, you touched on some of those international treaties and accords that are implicated here. Can you elaborate a little bit further on those in particular the Budapest memorandum and how that came into effect and what Russia is doing with respect to those agreements and accords that were reached historically?

Yeah, that’s a good question. The key thing was when the Soviet Union fell apart, Ukraine ended up with the third largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. They had 5,000 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. And the question is what should we do with them? There was discussions, how do we deal with this? And the US Clinton back then and the UK met with Russia and Ukraine and also France and China were involved in the background and they had the discussions that led to the Budapest Accords and the Accords essentially said, okay, we all respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and Ukraine is going to transfer its nuclear arsenal to Russia and Russia, the US and the UK guarantee Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Well, that’s what happened. But sadly today, Russia’s soldiers are in Ukraine and Ukraine has no nuclear weapons. So that’s a key factor.

(23:11)
Not many people are totally alert about that. And it’s one of the factors why these events that are taking place today are so extraordinary and why they’re, I think in part why people are so sympathetic to Ukraine. There are others, like in 60 days, an entire nation, 12 million people have been uprooted and displaced, 12 million people. And of those 5 million, almost six now are out in the west as displaced persons scattered among Eastern Europe largely and trickling into the United States and into places like Canada and elsewhere. But that’s a lot of people. In a short period of time, like at the end of World War ii, there were, when everything was settled and the dust settled, there were seven to 11 million displaced persons in Europe. We’re looking at the same numbers today, similar numbers today and back then America, they passed the Displaced Persons act back then. And as a result of that, America brought in 425,000 displaced people to the United States. And you and me and others are likely the beneficiaries of those events, the ones that came during that time period from all nationalities, all kinds, Italians, Ukrainians bowls, Jewish people, all kinds, all came in under those conditions. So we’re going to have to look for something similar. Now,

One of the things I have, I heard this either on the New York Times podcast, the Daily, or it was, maybe it was NPRs up first, I think it was the Daily, but they were talking a lot about the Russian disinformation campaign that’s going on in Russia right now and how specifically they interviewed a young man who lives in Ukraine and his father lives in Russia, and he was talking to his dad about what was going on in Ukraine, and his dad was saying over and over again, that’s not what’s happening. We’re liberating people from Nazis. And the son was saying, I’m telling my dad that’s not what’s going on. I’m on the ground here. They’re bombing civilians. And over and over again, his dad was saying, no, that is not what’s happening. We’re liberating people from Nazis. And it seems like Russia has really, China’s always out there, but Russia seems to be cornering the market on disinformation campaigns in the last few years, and we’re getting a lot of reports. I think that the people in Russia are very supportive of this and view themselves as liberators. I wonder if you could talk a little about that.

It’s a good point. There’s a kaleidoscope of opinions in Russia, but the rank and file is essentially not exposed to international opinion. There’s no free press, there’s no internet, there’s no Google. And find your answer in Russia. So a lot of people, the shall we say, those on the farms, those in rural settings and so on in particular are completely divorced from world events. And so you have these extraordinary situations like you described, where someone is phoning their relative. And I know of other situations like that, even in my own office here, there are lawyers here who are phoning back home and they can’t believe what their parents are saying about what’s going on. So this information, there’s two types internal where they’re telling them, look, this is the line. We’re fighting fascists and Nazis in Ukraine and it’s World War II all over again, which it isn’t.

(27:05)
By the way, I’ve already mentioned Zelensky iss Jewish, his family was in the Holocaust. That’s just one factor. Ukraine was one of the major players in terms of fighting Germany, Nazi Germany, it lost more people than any other nation, I think in the war to Nazi Germany. My own family had that experience. So that’s a perverse argument. But the more insidious problem is RT and other agencies are used abroad to inform people like you and me about what’s going on from Russia’s point of view. And the basic gist there is they collect five facts and then throw in a piece of propaganda and you don’t know what’s fact and what’s propaganda, and we’re all sort of, whoa. Oh yeah, well, that’s Russia’s point of view. Oh yeah. They have entire warehouses of people who go online pretending to be Westerners, to put in their point of view and the impeachment proceedings and all that brought up the issues there. So you can read about it there.

I mean you can visibly see that on Twitter and you can watch the time zones and you can see when people are at work in Russia, you’re getting more and more people saying Everything’s fine. Putin’s the greatest leader in the world, et cetera. And it seems like that’s what’s going on inside the country too.

Yeah, earlier I said a kaleidoscope of opinions. That’s maybe a misrepresentation of what’s going on in Russia. There are Democrats in Russia with various kinds. One is Navalny who is trying to be Putin’s successor. He’s a Democrat, but only to the border of Russia, for example. He does not support an independent Crimea or a Ukrainian Crimea up to the border. He’s democratic when he gets to the border. He’s not democratic, but there are Democrats, Russian Democrats, Kasparov would be an example, the chess player. And there’s a community of those people as well. So there’s a variety of opinions.

Okay, great. Well, thank you. I think with that, we will take our first break.

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And we are back. Jen, do you want to kick us off for segment two?

Yeah, in the intro we talked a little bit about Andy’s background, and I actually, just a personal side to this, I am Ukrainian, I’m 50% Ukrainian, and when I started my career in law, I worked for a Ukrainian lawyer named Donya Brunick. So she’s listening, shout out to Donya, and she’s the person who introduced me and connected me to Andy as an expert in international law and also an immigration lawyer who is engaged in the effort to help immigrants of all walks, but specifically Ukrainians right now as I know there’s an increased need. And Andy is the author of a book that Trish mentioned at the top of the hour called A Promise Cap Tribute to a Mother’s Love. And I actually picked up a copy of the book and I’m looking forward to reading that. And the summary of the story is basically about your mother, Andy, and I think we’re recording this the day after Mother’s Day.

(30:48)
So I think it’s nice to point out that there’s a great story out there that our listeners could check out about your mother and her journey from growing up in Eastern Europe and through World War II and then eventually immigrating to Canada and living her life as an immigrant in Northern America. And I was hoping, I want to talk a little bit about the humanitarian side of what’s going on here, the humanitarian crisis and what we in the United States and lawyers in particular can do to be engaged in the effort to assist Ukrainians who are coming here. But before we launch into that a little bit more, can you tell us about your personal connection and your mother’s story just so our listeners can kind of understand what brought you to practice immigration law?

That’s a wonderful question from my point of view. Just over this weekend, I went for coffee with 10 women lawyers who had just arrived in Canada from Ukraine. Three of them had little children, and it underlined for me that 90% of the 12 million people who are displaced, they’re all women and children or at least the 5 million that are outside the country. 90% are women and children or disabled old people. As far as my mother was concerned, I have of extraordinary, I think it’s an extraordinary story. Everybody’s story is extraordinary. I know your story is extraordinary and yours ish. My mother came at the end of World War II from Ukraine to Canada. When she came, it was never her intention to come to Canada and live for the rest of her life in Canada. My father, similarly, you’ll find in the book, my name is Chuuk, I say in English, he came in 1912.

(32:47)
He also came thinking he’d come make some money, go back to Ukraine. All these women I met, and it’s funny, mother’s Day was the weekend. All these mothers all came with a view. I’m just coming for a couple of, I don’t know how long, a year, maybe two, and then I’m going back to Ukraine. But the sad reality of immigration often is that they never go back. They stay and their lives settle. And that’s just the way it is. And I know that’s the experience of America. I know it well. The Irish, the Italians, the Pole, I mean you name it, the Africans in that story, that whole, the slavery and all that. It’s the story of America. I mean, it was hardship and terrible, but it’s also a glorious story of survival and heroism. I think immigration is all about heroism. It takes guts to pick up and leave not knowing where you’re going.

(33:52)
You don’t know the language, you don’t know the people somewhere on the other side of the world. That was the story with my mother, but my mother also lived through the dark, darkest moments in European history under a Nazi occupation in view. Today, people know what view is or where view is. Until the war broke up only 60 days ago, broke out over 60 days ago, I doubt any of the people who are listening to this broadcast or very few would’ve known where view is. My mother was in view. In fact, I’m going to share this little thing. I’m in the process of coming out with the book. I’ve been writing it for six years about Somia. That’s the name of the book. She was a famous opera singer in the Glory Days of Opera in the 19 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, who was my great aunt and my mother’s aunt. And it’s a story in part of living through the Nazi occupation of Vu and also the Soviet occupation. Those are a few thoughts about those times.

I am very fortunate to be holding in my hand and I’ll show it to you now. This is a loose leaf memoir that my great-grandmother wrote. She probably wrote it in the nineties, frankly, because the opening paragraph talks about the fact that at the time of its writing, the Ukraine was now one of the republics of the Soviet Union. I gather that is when she wrote it, and we’re very fortunate as a family that she put pen to paper, literally it’s written on loose leaf and copied for us, telling the story of her journey. She was born in 1902 in the town of Puritan in Ukraine, which I’m not sure if you know where that is. I don’t have a personal perspective. I think frankly, looking on Google Maps, it’s like a microscopic small town. But so given that she came here when she was approximately between the ages of 10 and 12, probably similar to the time when your father came, Andy.

(35:55)
So it’s interesting and we’re very fortunate to read that story. Similarly, my mother’s father was born on Ellis Island. His mother boarded a ship when she was probably what, eight or nine months pregnant to come to the United States. So it is the story of America and it’s the story of heroism and it’s the human side of this crisis. You’re practicing in this area and you’re working with clients every day, every week. And if you follow Andy on Twitter at a Semitic, you’ll see your Twitter updates. And I saw that you’re hosting weekly group sessions through your firm on Fridays to assist people who need help with immigration matters or just quick resources it seems. Can you tell us what you’re seeing on the front lines of this crisis in Canada? And I know you’re licensed both in Canada and in the United States. Who are the individuals? You mentioned mostly women and children, but who has been displaced from Ukraine and where are they going and when they get there, what are they met with and what resources are available?

Well, first of all, they’re traumatized. Imagine bombing nightly or whatever. This is like World War II over again. So they’re not thinking clearly necessarily. Also, they’re confused. They don’t know it wasn’t in their plans that they’re going to be ending up somewhere in eastern Europe at the moment. By the way, most of them are not here. Very few of them are still, some are coming, but very few of them are really coming here so far. They’re all in Eastern Europe somewhere, or at least being spread out throughout Europe. And the problem is processing times is one of the big deals. If you’ve got two, I don’t know what 5 million people applying to come to the United States, you can imagine how long that’s going to take or if it will ever happen. This is an enormous problem, enormous in the sense that the apple is too big to bite even into nevermind swallow.

(38:06)
I mentioned at the end of World War ii, and I don’t know if I’m addressing your question directly, but allow me to coast into it this way. At the end of World War ii, the United States brought in 425,000 people to the United States. That was a big deal back then, but that’s just like a minor little microcosm of what’s out there in Europe right now. And the question is going to be what are the implications of the fact that there are so many people who are displaced than what’s going to go on? One of the factors is fatigue. We’re all tired of the war. I see it coming across the screen every day. I can’t imagine what they must feel like hearing from the husbands are all out there fighting in the country. The wives are out here with the kids. Danny, how are you? Have you been shot?

(38:57)
Are they feeding you? All this kind of stuff. I feel for them in the sense that you show up in a new country, you don’t speak the language, you don’t know anybody. They don’t have any money or they have very little money because the money, the banks were all frozen at the time they were leaving. They weren’t planning for a major exodus. So you’re at the mercy of all these people. As an example, Poland, God bless those people, but if you’ve ever had guests in your house a day, two days, two weeks, three weeks, pretty soon you get tired. You think, oh, I want my home back. Imagine these people are living with these people. It’s now two months and there’s no end to this thing. So that’s the reality of what we’re dealing with, and there’s going to be a lot more of that reality.

Andy, can I ask you for people that are listening to the podcast for people like me and Jen, right? We’re just living our lives in Chicago, going to work, going home, what is the best way for us to help? If you’re somebody that listens to this and you see it on the news and you really want to do something, what is the best way for us to help?

Okay, this is going to be quick. I’m just going to summarize where we’re at and where we could be right now. We have TPS acknowledgement for Ukrainians who are in the United States. You could help with that. Help people get TPS. We’re having clinics popping up here and there. They need lawyers to help. That’s one thing that people can do. The other is this humanitarian parole. It’s called Uniting with Ukraine Parole, where they’re allowing people to come in on humanitarian parole for two years, and in theory, getting work permits. But the problem is processing times. All of it is processing times. Why do we put people in the position of bringing them here but not giving them a work permit if we’re allowing them to come? Here’s a mother with three children. She doesn’t have a work permit. She has to apply for a ED employment authorization.

(41:01)
That’s going to take eight months, six, 10 months. How are they supposed to live in that time period? Yes, they have a sponsor who agrees to look after them, but the sponsor’s looking after shelter, food, clothing, and all. There are limits. So why burden them with that stuff? In short, it’s a small number, a hundred thousand people. It’s not going to, the United States is not going to fall apart with a hundred thousand people coming in. That’s the amount declared by Biden is America’s goal. Let’s make it easy as possible for these people to come and work if they want to work. Now, don’t forget, women, they got children to look after. I don’t know how many of them are going to be working, but nonetheless, let’s make it easy for them. And let’s face it, right now, a two year humanitarian parole is a dead end.

(41:53)
It’s not going anywhere. Half the time you’re not going to have a work permit. And the other time, if you do, you probably will have a hard time finding a job or you may not. The language questions coming in. So there’s no real support. This is all sort of a, thank God they did it, but they could do a lot more. The last comment I want to say is the best thing we could do is go back to Displaced Persons Act as a model for what we should do, not only for Ukrainians, but for Afghanis, for Iraqis, for all the Syrians. Yeah, Syrians refugees, yes. But that’s a small little circle. Let’s make it possible for anybody who can find a sponsor and who’s willing to support the person to come in and help. Certainly family members, let’s make it possible for those people to come into the United States. It’ll be great for every one of them.

A lot of your comments, I think were in reference to the Biden Administration’s Uniting for Ukraine plan, which was recently put into effect, and I think you were kind of pointing out some of the flaws, but in general, what are the prospects there? What are you thinking are the pros, the cons, and how do you think it’s going to be effective?

Glad they did it, happy that they’re concerned. Much more needed, much better plan needed. It’s not working. There’s a few dribbling in, they came in through Mexico in the beginning, but you imagine women and children going through Mexico, Tijuana to get to the United States. What’s going to go wrong there mean? So now they cut off Mexico, so you can’t even go there. And they cut off business and visitors visas. They say, well, you can’t say that you’re going to return back home. We can’t give you a visa. So we’re kind of channeling them into this humanitarian parole, but okay, let’s try this. Parole out. Number one, you have to find a sponsor. Someone here has to sponsor them from over here to bring them over here. That’s hard to do, especially if you don’t know anybody, especially if you don’t speak the language. Number two, you got to be vaccinated, okay, vaccinated, but you got to be vaccinated.

(44:13)
Number three, you got to create a portal to upload all your documents. You got to go through a biometrics, get your fingerprints and all that done before you come here. You got to get all that done. Number five or whatever it is. You got to have your passports and your ID documents. Now in the middle, a worry, you don’t exactly get up and where’s my passport? Where are my IT documents? You get the heck out of the house, you’re in Mario po out, out on the street and out. Okay, so that’s it, all four. If you go through this entire process, all four, two years of a dead end in which you don’t have a work permit and no benefits, no support, just you get to come to the United States and at the end of two years, goodbye. That’s where we’re at right now. But we could do better.

(45:02)
We could do better. Not only we, Canada could do better. Europe could do better too. They’re doing well, but they could do better. That’s what we got to do. We got to work together to do better. Listen, I just want to say one other thing. Every community has people linked in over there. I think of the Jewish community, half of Hollywood’s parents, grandparents and so on came from Ukraine. Half of the leadership in Israel came from Ukraine like Gold, Maier and GaN and all those people. They all came from Ukraine. Ukraine has a central place, honored place in terms of Jewish history. One of the rabbis, one of the top rabbis died there, and every community’s got some kind of link there. It’s not every community, but a lot of communities do. So if you think, well, Ukrainians are Ukrainians. Well, not necessarily. There are like Greeks there. There are Jewish people there, Arabs, there are no kidding all kinds.

I recently had a conversation with Mary Meg McCarthy, the executive director of NIJC, which is the National Immigrant Justice Center, and she told me, because I asked the question that Trish just asked, what can our lawyers do? What can Chicago based lawyers do in particular, that’s who I’m representing the CBA community. And she told me a lot of Ukrainians that they’re meeting with aren’t interested in TPS for the reasons that you’ve described. It’s two years. It’s temporary. It doesn’t provide the relief that they’re seeking. So what they’re looking for are lawyers who will take asylum cases. And that’s very challenging to find either on a pro bono basis or a firm that’s willing to invest that level of commitment, time, et cetera, to take an asylum case because it’s so involved and take such a long time to work its way through the courts. Is that what you’re hearing from your clients as well? And would you say that’s the overarching legal need right now for Ukrainians who have made their way here

During the Vietnam crisis, after it was winding down, there were a lot of Vietnamese outside of Vietnam in camps. And what Western immigration officers did is they got planes flew over there, put up a tent, said if you have family in, I know Canada in particular, a friend of mine was one of them had a tent, he had a sign up there, if you have family in Canada, speak to me. And the same was true in the US, by the way. And what they did is they recruited those like they did in, I think it was in Syria as well, that it was something like this going on for Syrians. They recruited people who had family members and basically made it possible for them to come and they loaded a plane and flew it over to Canada or the us. Why not do something like that?

(48:02)
That’s possible. That’s the way I would go. I understand there’s a category of refugees that could be used to acknowledge Ukrainians who are displaced persons as refugees. The reason why they’re interested in refugee status is because of the benefits that come, like English language, social assistance, things of that nature, which are not available under these other categories. But again, I believe a larger solution would be this displaced person solution. It’s not a perfect solution, but I think why I like it is because it addresses the Ukrainian issue, but it also addresses the other issues. Afghanis and all these other people who need some kind of a resolution, this refugee definition and trying to push everybody through this small little circle legal definition, someone outside their country of origin fearing persecution from the government in the Ukraine right now, the government’s Ukrainian. There’s no fear of persecution of the Ukrainian government, so it’s a non-starter unless you bend the definition, and I’m tired of bending definitions.

(49:14)
Let’s make it something more realistic in terms of dealing. We’re going to have water crises, we’re going to have earthquakes and all kinds of other things coming up through climate change that is going to displace entire millions of people. We need a better paradigm for dealing with these people that are upset overnight and are looking for some place to live. Last comment, the United States cannot solve Ukraine’s problem alone. The United States, nor should it try it, can help solve it along with other communities, other countries, and Ukraine’s not the only problem out there. I’m aware of that. There are many African nations, south American nations that need help. So I’m hoping we can find a paradigm that we can use to help these people, and it’s going to have to be based on sponsorship, either family connection or friendships or professional connections that will make it possible for these people to come to the United States, to Canada, Australia, the other countries that could work on this new definition of how we address these humanitarian cases. I’m hoping we can find that and work together on that.

Andy, for people that are listening to our podcast today who just want to give money or they don’t have time to take on a new case, or maybe they’re not lawyers. I think a lot of people listen to our podcasts who aren’t lawyers. What is the best way, the most direct way to support Ukrainian refugees with money? Where should we be sending our money?

Well, one group is a group called ra, A RAZ or ZOM. It’s a Ukrainian group based in New York. They’re doing phenomenal work. They’re a favorite of mine. But traditional organizations like the Red Cross are also, there are a number of legitimate organizations out there that are raising money. If, for example, I noticed that the Jewish community is raising money through their synagogues and so on, God bless them. Let’s do it whatever way you can to help the people you like in particular. I think that’s a good deal. I think you can work through multiple avenues to help.

So right now in the media, we have sort of this, it’s almost become a David versus Goliath story, right? The giant Russian military who looks like it bit off more than it can chew, and President Zelensky with his sort of ragtag army of scrappy men who are fighting for their own freedom and are frankly putting up a hell of a fight. And I think from our perspective, we’ve all been cheering them on and just kind of hoping that they survive and they’re doing, I think a little better than expected, but it does not seem like Putin is going to give this up easily. How does this end? How do you think this is going to end?

Well, I wish I had a crystal ball and I could tell you that here’s my take. It’s going to be a long war. I think the longer it lasts, the more likelihood there will be escalation. I don’t want this to happen, but I do believe there will be nuclear. There’ll be a nuclear involvement in it. And the question is, what do we do once that happens? The wrong answer would be let’s scurry all back into our holes and close the door and hope for the best. The key thing is a change in Russia. I don’t see another way around us. You can blame it on the United States and nato, and you can say, oh, why are they so aggressive? And let them, let’s all go to the peace table and talk. It’s not that they don’t want peace, and it’s not that they don’t want to talk.

(53:11)
I’m talking about Ukrainians. It’s just that at the moment, I think we’re all at the mercy of Putin, who is someone that’s impossible to deal with. And until there’s some kind of a change in Moscow, I don’t see a way for the war to end. Let me just say this. In World War ii, what they did is they collected people and shipped them to camps where they burned them. Auschwitz. In this war, they’re taking the camps and taking them to the people and burning them. They’ve got these crematoriums on wheels and burning them on the site. That’s the graduation of the level of monstrosity that’s taking place. President Biden has called it a genocide. The Canadian parliament has recognized it as a genocide. We have to stay together and fight together on this one. There’s no other way. We have to all be together, even if it’s just based on the international rules based order agreement. Let that be the agreement if we can’t do democracy worldwide, but we have to stay together on it.

Andy, thank you. On that sobering note, I think we need to take our second break.

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Okay, and we are back. So Andy Semotiuk, thank you so much. We cannot thank you enough for being with us here today. We are heading into our third segment. We are running a little late on time, so I think we’re going to cut it down to one question today. So Andy, this is a little game we like to call stranger than legal fiction. We end all of our podcasts this way, and what I’m going to do is I’m going to give you two laws, one that is real and one that is fake or no longer real because it’s been repealed or is ancient history in some other way. So I’m going to read you the two. Then you’re going to tell me which one you think is real and which one you think is fake. And then Jen’s going to go and there’s no real prize other than we will let you put this on your resume. So if you win stranger than legal fiction. So are you guys ready? Great.

I’m ready. I’m ready. Trisha, I’m ready.

Sure.

Okay. So number one, in Illinois, it is illegal to ride or drive faster than a walking pace through a herd of livestock.

Okay? All right.

Number two, in Alabama, there is a five minute limit to standing in a voting booth and voting, and if it takes you longer than five minutes, you can be asked to leave.

Wow.

So whoa,

If that’s a lot, it definitely should not, I’ll let you go first though, Andy.

I will choose the, I think there are values involved here, but I’ll just go with the walking faster than a herd. Sounds more realistic of the two to me, although it could very well be that in Alabama that was very realistic in the day, but I’m going to vote on the walking slower than the herd.

Okay. Jen, what do you think?

I feel like what I’ve learned from listening to all of our past episodes and all of these stranger than legal fictions is that sometimes the more ridiculous sounding the law is, the more likely it is to be real. And unfortunately, the fight for democracy and voting rights, wages on, so I’m going to guess the Alabama five minute law is real and the livestock law is fake.

Okay. Well, Andy, I’m sorry. As a parting gift, you are not going to be able to put on your resume that you won stranger than legal fiction. The Illinois law is called the Drover’s Act. It was passed in 1872, amended in 1941 and repealed in 1977. Of course, the Alabama law, Israel from 2020 two’s, Alabama’s Secretary of State Voting Guide, voters are allowed to be in a booth for four minutes. At that time, they will be asked by a poll worker if they need assistance, and then they then permitted to remain in the polling booth for up to one additional minute. At that point, if there is anybody waiting in line, the voter is asked to leave. If you spend any time reading about this law, you’ll find that it is of course, part of a law and southern tradition against allowing black and brown voters to legally cast ballots, and it is still on the books and enforced today.

(59:18)
So, yeah. Wow. Kind of a somber note to end on a somber podcast, but that is our show for today. I want to thank our guest, Andy Ek, for his time in this very interesting and timely conversation. Our hearts are with the people of Ukraine. I also want to thank my co-host and our executive producer, Jen, by and Burn, and everyone at the Legal Talk Network family, they are truly the very best in the business. Remember, you can follow us on Facebook, on Instagram and Twitter. Send us comments, questions. We are on all of the platforms at cba, at theBar, all one word. You can also rate us and leave your feedback on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you download your podcast. It helps get the word out. Until next time, for everyone here at the Chicago Bar Association, thank you for joining us and we will see you soon at theBar.