Donald Trump is planning to revoke temporary legal status for the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians previously welcomed in the US, reports say.

Approximately 240,000 Ukrainians who fled Vladimir Putin’s invasion may now be on a fast-track to deportation as soon as April, according to Reuters who spoke to four undisclosed sources.

It’s a sharp contrast to the way Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, welcomed the Ukrainians when the war began in 2022.

This move does predate the US president’s row with Volodymyr Zelenskyy from last week, though.

The US president demanded Homeland Security “terminate all categorical parole programmes” back on January 20, in one of his many executive orders.

It means possibly removing the legal status from more than 1.8 million migrants who arrived in the US – from a range of countries, not just Ukraine – under Biden’s temporarily humanitarian parole schemes.

Reuters reported that an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) document revealed that migrants could be fast-tracked for deportations as soon as next month.

Neither US nor Ukrainian officials confirmed the claims to the news agency.

Even so, the decision, if it goes ahead, is likely to worsen tensions between Kyiv and Washington.

Trump has pledged to crack down on immigration repeatedly during his second term in office.

The Uniting for Ukraine programme, which gave Ukrainians a means to stay in the States for up to two years while working and receiving health insurance, was already suspended in late January after the new US president returned to office.

But Trump has turned his gaze onto the Ukraine war in recent weeks, and is looking to end it as soon as possible.

He has paused US military aid to Ukraine and stopped sharing US intelligence about Russia with Ukraine in a bid to push Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the negotiating table with Putin.

He has also called for Europe to take greater responsibility with its own security, leaving the continent to protect itself against Putin’s expansionist goals.