Ukrainians Face New Hurdle at U.S. Border: No Dogs

Natasha Hrytsenko, a lifelong resident of Ukraine, had always dreamed of having a fluffy white dog. When she started working, Ms. Hrytsenko, now 30, used her first two paychecks to buy a purebred mini Maltese puppy. She brought Eddie home to the Kyiv apartment that she shared with her older sister.

Eight years later, when war engulfed their country and they decided to flee, Ms. Hrytsenko recalls telling her sister: “I can leave behind my best clothes, my favorite bags and even my cellphone. But I will never leave Eddie behind.”

The pair made their way to Poland, then Germany, then Portugal, bound eventually for the United States, where they had friends in Virginia. The tiny dog journeyed with them, tucked under their arms or plopped on their laps.

The sisters made it as far as Tijuana, the Mexican city on California’s southern border, before they heard the news that stopped them short: Dogs from Ukraine were in most cases not being allowed into the United States. A number of people had already had to leave their pets behind in Mexico under federal health regulations.

“I would rather go back to Europe,” Ms. Hrytsenko told her sister.

Among the thousands of Ukrainians who have been lining up at the southern border since the Russian invasion, the past few weeks have been marked by a painful progression of loss: homes, loved ones, jobs, the quiet comfort of familiar neighborhoods. For those who had managed to carry a beloved pet along on their journey to an uncertain future, the barrier at the border has proved devastating.

“He is everything to us,” Ms. Hrytsenko’s sister, Ira, 31, said of the dog.

“The number of dogs here has been growing day by day,” said Victoria Pindrik, a volunteer with the Save Ukraine Relief Fund, which has been working with Ukrainian refugees who are attempting to enter the United States. “Dogs have been sent back to us.”

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prohibits except on an “extremely limited basis” any dogs from entering the United States if they have been in any one of roughly 50 countries, including Ukraine, that it classifies as “high risk” for rabies.

At the crowded border crossing in Tijuana, where a dedicated pedestrian lane has been opened to speedily process Ukrainian refugees, Customs and Border Protection agents initially allowed a number of pets into the country, volunteers working at the border said. But more recently, pets from Ukraine have not been allowed.

The Hrytsenko sisters had taken steps as soon as they left Ukraine to make sure their dog would be prepared for international travel.

Volunteer veterinarians gave Eddie his first rabies shot in Poland and his second in Germany, where veterinarians also inoculated him against parasites, implanted a microchip in his neck and provided him with paperwork and an international ID to ensure he could travel.

The sisters planned to travel to the United States through Mexico, a roundabout trip that thousands of refugees have attempted because of delays in setting up a legal pipeline for Ukrainians to enter the United States. Mexico does not require visas, so refugees have been able to fly to Mexico and apply for admission on humanitarian grounds at the U.S. land border.

The sisters boarded a flight from Lisbon to Mexico without a problem, their suitcases stuffed with cans of Newman’s Own organic chicken dog food. Eddie came along in a small portable carrier.

After they landed in Cancún last week, an animal inspector at the airport reviewed their paperwork and examined Eddie from head to toe. He handed over an official document with a stamp attesting to the dog’s good health. The sisters flew to Tijuana on Sunday.

There, they joined hundreds of Ukrainians waiting their turn to cross the border. In no time, Eddie was bounding gleefully across the mats that lined a large gym that had been transformed into a massive dormitory for refugees.

“We felt confident, trusting everything was fine,” Ira recalled. “Then, all of a sudden, we heard you can’t cross with your dog.”

After their trip of more than 6,000 miles, across four international borders, this barrier seemed the most formidable. They considered reversing their steps.

Ms. Pindrik, the American volunteer working with the refugees in Tijuana, said the process for gaining legal access to the United States under current procedures, which include a permit and possible quarantine, could take weeks.

“For many of these families that have been through trauma, it is important to keep their family together, including their pets that they spent so much energy, money and care to bring with them,” she said. “We understand the requirements the U.S. has in place and reasons for them, but it is impossible for the refugees to satisfy them.”

The C.D.C. said it had issued a number of permits for people arriving from Ukraine with their pets. “We are working with NGOs in Mexico and the U.S. along…