Hard work and hope: Ukrainians in Alaska ponder an uncertain future

When Dmytro Bondar heard that his manager at Alaska Minerals would sponsor his green card, he couldn’t hold back his emotions.

“I started bawling,” he said recently. “I’ve been working toward this for a long time.”

Bondar is a Ukrainian living in Alaska — one of about 1,000 immigrants from the country who have been coming here in a steady stream since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, said Asa Hohman, an attorney at the Alaska Immigration Law Center. For many, uncertainty is growing about their chances of staying.

Many of the Ukrainians came to the United States through the federal government’s Uniting for Ukraine program, designed to help them relocate here for a two-year period with a local sponsor who provides financial support. Some Ukrainians have since extended their stays, known as “humanitarian paroles,” and received Temporary Protected Status.

Both of these programs could be on the chopping block after President-elect Donald Trump takes office next week, according to Hohman and other advocates. Trump has talked about his intent to change the American immigration system and discontinue some programs that have helped immigrants be admitted to the U.S. Several Republican-leaning states challenged the legality of the policy that has been supporting Ukrainians and refugees from other countries. In Alaska, Hohman said, Law Center staff have noticed an uptick in calls recently from people who are concerned about potential changes to their status.

“The incoming administration — who knows what they’ll actually do? — but what they’ve campaigned upon was getting rid of humanitarian parole or even getting rid of Temporary Protected Status,” Hohman said. “The concern is getting higher the closer it gets to inauguration.”

To secure their ability to stay in the country, Hohman said, around 50 Ukrainians in Alaska are seeking employment-based green cards, which he said is “the only real way to stay in the current immigration system with any kind of efficiency.”

“There is a cost” for the employer, Hohman added, “but the cost compared to losing a valuable employee is nothing.”

For Michael Smith Jr., project manager at Alaska Minerals, the decision to sponsor his three Ukrainian employees wasn’t difficult. Before he hired Bondar, Smith said, he had been struggling to find reliable employees for his company, which sets up camps for workers across the state and employs up to 60 people during their high season. Smith said he was amazed by Bondar’s work ethic and quickly hired two more Ukrainians who are now part of the eight-person all-year crew at Alaska Minerals.

“They’ll tackle a simple job just as hard as they will tackle a difficult project,” Smith said. “They’re constantly looking for work to do. They don’t stand around and aren’t waiting to be directed.”

Smith said that his decision to sponsor his Ukrainian employees was not connected to the recent presidential election. He said he wanted to do it to support his hardworking staff, “to do right by them, right by us.”

“I’m over the moon about the fact that we get to do that,” he said. “I know they’re going to be the recipients of this, but I almost feel like we’re the lucky ones, as cheesy as that sounds.”

Besides proving themselves with individual employers, the newcomers from Ukraine are making crucial contributions to Alaska as a whole, especially considering that the state has struggled to maintain a workforce, needs highly skilled labor and is losing population, said Issa Spatrisano, the Alaska state refugee coordinator at Catholic Social Services.

“Our responsibility as the United States is to offer shelter and an opportunity for people to seek that safety and to live lives free of fear. And what a benefit to our state that so many people have arrived with very high skills, skills the state needs, that have arrived and contributed in such varied and powerful ways,” Spatrisano said. “The story of resettlement is not just what we provide them, but what they provide us.”

Nationally, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published a report last year highlighting how refugees and asylees benefited the country’s economy over a 15-year period through net fiscal impact and taxes.

In Alaska, the newcomers from Ukraine have been picking up various jobs — baking and driving for Doordash, building houses and engineering, offering beauty services and seasonal work — all of them making Alaska their home, all the while bolstering the state economy, Spatrisano said.

Alex Shalukho came from Sumy, a Ukrainian town on the border with Russia. As the war began, Sumy residents fought for their town, building barricades and anti-tank obstacles. To protect their children, he and his wife, Katya Klymenchenko, decided to move to Alaska.

Here, Shalukho started washing dishes and cleaning snow to earn money. After about seven months, he was able to get back into the career path he had in Ukraine. Now he is a mechanical engineer at Kasteler Consulting Inc. and hopes to start the process of applying for a work-based green card soon. Klymenchenko is now getting her master’s degree in business administration to grow further in her career.

The couple quickly fell in love with everything in Alaska: hiking, camping, skiing, snowmachining, riding ATVs and enjoying the midnight sun during summer and northern lights in winter, Shalukho said.

“People who stay here genuinely love this place, they are friendly, social and active — I like that a lot,” Shalukho said. “I feel lucky that on the first try, we found a place where we want to live permanently.”

Getting used to a new place doesn’t always go as smoothly.

For Tetiana Hilz, who came to Alaska from Odesa, the immigration experience was filled with feelings of isolation. She started working as a Doordash driver and thought education in the U.S. was unaffordable. Even after getting a grant to get licensed as an esthetician, Hilz had to reach out to 30 salons before landing a job at one in Wasilla.

Hilz said that now, she is feeling more secure and calls Alaska home. She said that going back to Ukraine is not an option because of how unstable the war-torn country is, and in the U.S., even with average pay, she feels that it’s easier to live comfortably.

But Hilz is unsure what the future holds, especially if the federal program won’t be extended.

“What we want is one thing but what actually happens is another story,” Hilz said in Russian. “It’s becoming more uncertain, of course, but no one knows how it will turn out.”

The outlook of uncertainty mixed with hope is shared by Olha Korol. She just opened her beauty services business in November and rents a room at Blended & Co. in Anchorage, offering haircuts, coloring, wedding services and makeup. In her room in December, brushes, combs and hairsprays were neatly displayed and interspersed with pastel-colored flowers and Christmas decorations.

A self-taught hairstylist from Dnipro, Korol — like Hilz — recently obtained a license to continue her career path in Alaska.

For Korol, who is obsessed with Alaska’s nature and takes pictures everywhere she goes, a dream is to open her own salon and help other Ukrainians get work.

For now, she said she just hopes she can stay in the state she calls home.

“I don’t know what exactly Donald Trump will do, what exactly will be his politics because sometimes he said one thing, sometimes another,” Korol said. “I hope it will be good because I know a lot of people are working hard here, they aren’t sitting here and waiting for anything. ... So I hope we’ll be OK.”

Alena Naiden, a former reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and Arctic Sounder, is now a reporter for Alaska Public Media and KNBA. She reported this story while she was a student in the class “Learn the City,” through the University of Alaska Anchorage.