The Department of Homeland Security sent an email to Ukrainian immigrants this month telling them they had a week to leave the country. The department later said the email was mistakenly sent and the recipients did not have to leave, but the error has rattled Ukrainians who escaped the Russian invasion and now live in New Hampshire.
NHPR’s Morning Edition host Rick Ganley recently spoke with Kateryna Nazarova, a case manager at Building Community in New Hampshire where she assists immigrants settling in the state. Some of her clients are among the Ukrainians who received the email from DHS.
Transcript
This email was sent to people who are here under the Uniting for Ukraine program.
Yes.
That gave people fleeing the war in Ukraine a pathway to be here in the U.S. What was it like for your clients to get that email saying that they had to leave so quickly?
What scared them the most, it was the seven days notice. Basically, seven days is not enough for anything like close your bank accounts, sell your stuff, I mean, buy new tickets if you want to buy the new tickets where you should go basically with your kids. So this is what the biggest concern of the client — like what's going to be the next step.
Now the email was sent in error, the government has said. But I mean, your clients must have some lingering worries.
Yes. So basically two of our clients get this email. We get a phone call from them between 9 to 10 [a.m.] and only, I think around 5 or 6 [p.m.], they get another email that [says] it was sent by mistake. Our organization did a lot of phone calls, emails to different departments just to inquire what's happening and what the clients should do. So we just asked them to remain calm. But basically you cannot be calm in this situation, because you don't know what's happening. And the Facebook groups, all the internet was full of these emails and there was like tons of comments about what's going to be the next step, probably that it was true and it's time for them to leave.
I imagine many are preparing, though, in case they do have to leave the U.S. What are people's plans?
There are not so many plans, to be honest. Like if the war in Ukraine would stop, I would say lots of Ukrainians would go back, especially with the kids. But in the current situation, it's just hard to predict where they can go, like in Europe. I mean, they've been here with the kids, some of them for two or three years. The kids just got adjusted to the schools. Like I was mentioning to my child — he's right now in third grade — that maybe he will need to learn other language and we need to move somewhere. And he said, "No, I'm not moving nowhere. I've been here for three years, so why should I go?" I said, "It's not up to you. It's just up to people who make decisions. So we cannot do much in this case."
I mean, you're here under the Uniting for Ukraine program yourself. You fled the war in your home country yourself, and you're also taking care of other people and advising other people that are here on that program, as well as others from other countries.
Yes. So I came here in August 2023. I mean, I'm extremely happy and thankful to all people who helped us to come here to get here with our child. And it was hard for him to get adjusted here for the first year. He's doing much better right now. He's more comfortable, secure. He has some friends. And we're also trying to think what's going to be our next step, but they are not so many options at this moment. We're really hoping that the war in Ukraine would end, but there are not so many changes. It's getting even worse. The way how they attacked right now in Ukraine.
You know, you said that you did not expect the war to be lasting this long. What has the personal cost of this war been to you and your family?
We never planned to leave Ukraine. I mentioned it several times to different people. I love my country. We have big family, like I have a sister, my husband have three brothers. And when the war started, we was really involved with volunteering, helping other people to evacuate them from the east of Ukraine. We had lots of volunteers from the United States. And my father, he was begging me not to leave Ukraine because he was there by himself. And he was very worried with all these things, with the air alarms, with the with the bomb explosions. But he understood that at the end that we are doing it for our child because he was extremely stressed out. So when we moved here, we knew that for now, it's going to be like a one way ticket, because with this program, basically you're not allowed to travel anywhere outside of the United States. So when we came here, probably like four months later my dad has the first heart attack. And in June he had a second heart attack and he died. And we weren't able even to leave the United States to come for his funeral.
I'm so sorry to hear that.
We might try it, but it was just risky if any one of us would go, and we didn't know how we can safely come back here.
I imagine you hear the same story from many people that you work with as well. They did not expect the war to be lasting this long. They have young children. They don't want to go back to a war zone. I'm wondering about some of the other concerns they have for their safety and their status here in New Hampshire, what they're telling you.
Right now, lots of cities in Ukraine have been occupied, like Mariupol. They're trying right now to work on Odessa, Zaporizhzhia. So we have lots of clients who are from the east part of Ukraine, and basically they don't have a place there to come back. So this is going to be the huge, huge concern. Like if the half of the Ukraine was occupied and people who flew from that part of Ukraine, from the east part of Ukraine, which one is currently belong to Russia, what they should do. Like what we should tell them. Like what is the next step for them? Or what are the plans for these people who lost their homes, family members and just don't have a place where to come back? The Ukrainian community here is a pretty big community with lots of support from New Hampshire. A lot of people are grateful and thankful to all the support from the schools, churches, communities, private sector, what they're doing currently and they're trying to help us. Only what they wish is just for peace in the whole world, and that all the kids will have a better future, and that they need to think about leaving, or moving, or changing, or learning are stressing out themselves.
