Hawaii-2022-SCR185-Introduced

WHEREAS, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted two million Ukrainians to flee the country as of March 8, 2022, and the number is expected to grow even higher as Russia continues its siege tactics of indiscriminately bombing cities; and

WHEREAS, in only the first week of the conflict, more than one million people had fled Ukraine, in comparison it took over two years for that many people to leave Syria; and

WHEREAS, as of March 8, 2022, the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia has caused at least 1,335 civilian casualties in Ukraine, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; and

WHEREAS, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights' statistics are based off confirmable casualties, the number is likely several times higher as many of Ukraine's largest cities under control of the Ukrainian government are subject to relentless bombing campaigns from long-distance artillery as well as air strikes from the Russian military and it is difficult if not impossible to confirm some of the deaths; and

WHEREAS, Russia has begun to use siege style tactics where cities are surrounded from all sides and shelled repeatedly, such as in the port town of Mariupol, and while Russia has promised to open civilian corridors to allow for civilians to leave these cities, several times when they have done so they have broken the ceasefire and shelled the civilian corridors resulting in civilian casualties; and

WHEREAS, for many of the civilians living in these areas, staying in their homes is not an option as intense bombing campaigns by Russia have caused water, power, and energy disruptions, leaving these civilians stuck in homes with no electricity, running water, or heat in freezing temperatures; and

WHEREAS, many of these civilians have fled from areas of the country with most of the fighting such as the north, east, and south, and have headed to the western part of the country which has been relatively untouched by the fighting; and

WHEREAS, cities such as Lviv in the western part of Ukraine near its borders with the European Union are bursting at the seams with refugees, and its mayor Andriy Sadovyi has requested international help as the city is currently housing two hundred fifty thousand refugees from other parts of Ukraine, and at least fifty thousand people transit through its railway stations a day; and

WHEREAS, the vast majority of refugees are women, children, and the elderly as Ukraine has banned men ages eighteen to sixty from leaving the country due to a mass mobilization of soldiers; and

WHEREAS, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as of March 8, 2022, Poland has received 1,204,403 refugees, Hungary has received 191,348 refugees, Romania has received 143,000 refugees, Slovakia has received 140,745 refugees, the Czech Republic has received more than one hundred thousand refugees, and Moldova has received 82,762 refugees, with other countries receiving fewer refugees; and

WHEREAS, countries such as Moldova, which is one of the poorest countries in Europe, need more international support to deal with the large number of refugees crossing the border from Ukraine; and

WHEREAS, the United States needs to take more concrete steps to help Ukrainian refugees such as increasing humanitarian aid to western parts of Ukraine that are dealing with an influx of refugees from the other parts of the country and countries dealing with large numbers of Ukrainian refugees; and

WHEREAS, recognizing that the United States has taken some steps towards helping the refugee crisis, such as allowing Ukrainians who arrived in the United States on or prior to March 1, 2022, to apply for temporary protected status; and

WHEREAS, the United States should further help by taking in refugees from Ukraine, similar to how refugees from Afghanistan were taken in, and the United States should also increase the limit of how many refugees it can take in to allow for the resettlement of Ukrainians; and

WHEREAS, more help should be given to the Ukrainian government and countries housing refugees as soon as possible, and plans should be made on how to deal with this crisis in the longer term as there does not seem to be an end in sight; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Thirty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2022, the House of Representatives concurring, that this body strongly and forcefully denounces the Russian Federation and its President Vladimir Putin for the blatant targeting of civilians by the Russian military and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, which makes evacuating civilians from the warzone even more difficult; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this body urges the United States Congress to take concrete actions to help with the refugee crisis facing Ukraine and its European neighbors by increasing material support to refugees, both those internally displaced, such as those who have fled to the relatively safe western part of Ukraine, and those who have fled the country, by sending monetary support and supplies to Ukraine and its neighbors who have accepted large numbers of refugees; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED the United States President and Congress are urged to take an active role in assisting the crisis by raising the U.S. Refugee Admissions and Refugee Resettlement Ceilings, making a stronger effort at resettling more Ukrainian refugees into the United States, and allocating more funding in order to support those efforts; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate, all members of Hawaii's congressional delegation, Governor, and mayors of each county.

	OFFERED BY:	_____________________________

Report Title:

Ukraine; Russia; Humanitarian Relief

THE SENATE	S.C.R. NO.	185
THIRTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2022
STATE OF HAWAII