Lutheran Services Carolinas (LSC) will serve Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion. LSC has been monitoring this situation through its national contacts and the media since the first week of the Russian invasion in preparation to serve.
The President has pledged to accept 125,000 Ukrainian refugees into the United States and congressional legislation is currently being considered to fund that pledge. It is estimated that it will take six to 12 months for those legal refugees to begin arriving stateside – after planning, implementation, and extreme vetting in their current location (Poland, Moldova, etc).
LSC is already serving a small number of Ukrainians who have been granted asylum in the United States and wish to settle in the Carolinas. Through its New Americans Program, LSC has resettled approximately 800 Ukrainians in the Greenville, SC area, and it’s expected more Ukrainians will want to resettle there among family and friends.
LSC anticipates resettling approximately 350 Ukrainians into each state – North and South Carolina. New Americans teammates continue to work with Afghan refugees resettled under the Afghan Placement Assistance (APA) program. The team has worked hard to develop effective processes after being overwhelmed by the sudden influx of arrivals and is now preparing for a significant wave of Ukrainian refugees.
LSC currently has five New Americans Program offices. In South Carolina, offices are located in Columbia, Charleston, and Greenville. In North Carolina, offices are located in Raleigh and Asheville (approved for Afghan and then Ukrainian refugees). LSC is applying to open new offices in Myrtle Beach (serving Florence), Wilmington, and Salisbury (serving the Triad and Charlotte Metro areas) and is applying for full refugee office status for Asheville. New offices would be opened in 2023.
LSC has resettled over 15,000 refugees since 1979 and partners with the national Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service to serve refugees and immigrants in the Carolinas.
