They Fled War in Ukraine to Make a Home in New York. Now, They Fear a Trump Presidency

When Inna Malamura and her young daughter Polina came to New York City two years ago fleeing the war in Ukraine, they shared a one-bedroom apartment with three other people in Brighton Beach.

Malamura, 39, had no job, just one suitcase of clothes, spoke no English and could barely afford basic items like a cell phone.

Her life has totally changed since.

She now works as a marketing assistant for a doctor in Brooklyn who also immigrated from Ukraine, lives in her own one-bedroom apartment and can converse in English.

“We are so happy,” Malamura told THE CITY last week. “We just bought a television.”

Malamura and her daughter are two of an estimated 27,000 Ukrainian immigrants who are seeking to resettle in New York City, according to the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA). They join the long list of newcomers who have successfully carved out some stability in New York after the war totally uprooted their lives.

But thousands of other newly arrived people are struggling to build livelihoods here, with many stuck in homeless shelters and unable to work. Nearly 200,000 global migrants have been placed in some type of temporary housing in New York City since the spring of 2022, according to City Hall.

Some have been forced to sleep outside or in the subway, according to an internal poll conducted by the city.

Malamura has been more fortunate.

She got her job with the help of a network of Ukrainian immigrants and advocates, and her boss co-signed her lease on the apartment in Brighton Beach.

She’s also one of more than million immigrants the Biden administration has permitted into the country via the use of humanitarian parole, which allows some without visas to temporarily reside and work in the United States.

Thousands from Ukraine, Afghanistan and Mexico have been granted the coveted status.

“It’s not a promise of long term immigration or a green card,” Malamura said. “But it does give me work authorization and a social security number — basically everything a person with a green card would have.”

That all could change after the next presidential election on Nov. 5.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has threatened mass deportations of immigrants if elected. He has also vowed to end the “ outrageous abuse of parole .”

Immigrants in New York City are worried.

“Obviously, everyone is nervous about it. People talk about it all the time,” said Yelena Goltsman, founder and head of RUSA LGBTQ+ , a group assisting Malamura and other immigrants.

Early Struggles

For Malamura, the first six months were the most challenging.

She and her daughter, who lived in Vinnytsia, a city in west-central Ukraine near Kiev, were initially overwhelmed with life in Brooklyn.

“I wasn’t used to living in New York City where it’s loud and kind of dirty,” she said.

Polina, who was 10 at the time, begged to go back home.

“The first half a year my daughter asked everyday why we came here,” her mother said.

She enrolled in the Hebrew Language Academy charter school and just finished sixth grade.

Her tumultuous childhood has had some benefits.

Now, she speaks four languages: Ukrainian, Polish, English and Hebrew. She’s spending her summer at a camp near Albany called Tranquility.

“She learned a lot of English there last year,” her mother said. “That’s all they spoke.”

There are more than 1,000 people on the waiting list for English classes being offered at the Shorefront YM-YWHA of Brighton-Manhattan Beach, according to Sue Fox, the executive director.

Malamura and many other Ukrainian immigrants relied on the Shorefront Y to help them navigate a maze of bureaucracy when they first arrived.

“People continue to come,” she said. “We’ve got many new people as well as people here for two plus years.”

The biggest challenge they are wrestling with is “returning to Ukraine,” said Fox, who said most newcomers thought it would be a temporary stay in New York City.

In April 2022, Mayor Adams and MOIA Commissioner Manuel Castor launched the Ukrainian Response Initiative to provide immigrants from the war torn country with “access to social services, translation services, mental health support, immigration legal assistance, and other resources.”

The $2 million initiative helped more than 3,200 individuals, according to MOIA. The program ended in June with new federal funds going to the state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.

Malamura relied on food stamps and government funded health care when she first arrived.

But advocates say more public funds are needed to assist the vulnerable population — as well as the thousands of immigrants from Venezuela and Mexico.

“It’s a lot of volunteers and activists who have filled in the need,” said Goltsman, who herself immigrated from Ukraine in 1990. “But the war is still raging and the help has dried out.”

She just got a request for help from a family moving to New York at the end of the month, she said.

“I started looking at who I could reach out to,” she said, “and there are very few community-based groups helping.”

“The war is still raging, but the support is diminished,” she added.

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