Ukrainian workers at landmark Minneapolis restaurant seek answers after Trump halts work permit renewals
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Thousands of Ukrainians who’ve settled temporarily in Minnesota fear that they may soon have to return home, even as Russia’s assault on their country continues. That’s because the Trump administration has stopped renewing work permits for people who came to the United States under a Biden-era humanitarian program.
The concern is especially high at Kramarczuk’s deli and restaurant in northeast Minneapolis, a cornerstone of the city’s Ukrainian community known for its stuffed cabbage, pierogies, sausage and other eastern European delicacies.
Wasyl and Anna Kramarczuk started the business as a butcher shop after leaving Ukraine during World War II. For decades, people newly arrived from the former Soviet Union and its satellite countries have worked at Kramarczuk’s, where they’ve been able to earn a living, learn English, and assimilate to American culture.
“Kramarczuk’s has been an incubator for immigrants and refugees from eastern Europe for 70 years,” said Orest Kramarczuk, the founder’s son. “Besides the food and the history here, our primary mission was to help a lot of the immigrants and refugees from eastern Europe.”
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“I found my job on my first day in the USA,” said Anastasiia Onyshchenko, who came to Minneapolis from Kyiv in 2023. Onyshchenko, 23, said that she loved her job, which included boosting Kramarczuk’s social media presence.
But Onyshchenko’s employment came to an abrupt halt last week. Onyshchenko said that in the fall, she applied for an extension to her two-year work permit but never heard back from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
“Work permits aren’t being extended, and every day more and more people are losing their right to work,” she said.
Onyshchenko is among around 240,000 people who came to the U.S. through a program called Uniting for Ukraine, or U4U, which former President Joe Biden launched soon after Russia’s 2022 invasion. An estimated 2,600 people have settled in Minnesota, according to the state’s Department of Human Services. Biden began the program under a provision in immigration law known as humanitarian parole. But after the Democrat left the White House in January, Republican President Donald Trump ordered a stop to all parole programs on his first day in office.
Trump’s order doesn’t mean that Ukrainians living in the U.S. have to leave immediately. But the nonprofit Ukraine Immigration Task Force said authorities are not accepting extension applications, and Ukrainians who applied after October may not get an answer from the government until or unless the streamlined extension process resumes. USCIS did not respond to a request for comment from MPR News.
Daryna Kalenska started at Kramarczuk’s after arriving in Minneapolis late last year. Her work permit is good through September of 2026, but Kalenska, 20, said the uncertainty over shifting immigration policy worries her.
“I have a lot of time to work, but I don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” Kalenska said. “Maybe this program will be canceled. And I don’t know. What should I do in this situation?”
Viktoriia Pashchyn, who grew up in a village near Ternopil, came to the United States in late 2023. Pashchyn, 24, said she likes Minneapolis because the cost of living is lower than in larger cities and she was able to find a job quickly. Pashchyn said Kramarczuk’s helped her get settled.
“They helped us with temporary homes, with documents, and other stuff,” she said.
Under current rules, Pashchyn is able to work at the restaurant through September but said that she has been unable to extend her permit.
Twin Cities immigration attorney Evangeline Dhawan-Maloney said humanitarian programs such as Uniting for Ukraine are discretionary, and who’s admitted depends on who’s in the White House.
“The laws give the president broad authority to parole individuals into the United States,” she said. “One administration can choose to parole more individuals and another could, as we’re seeing now, scale that back significantly.”
Dhawan-Maloney said that the U4U program does not include a path to citizenship or permanent residency. And while the Ukrainian workers at Kramarczuk’s might be able to apply for asylum, she said the bar for getting it is high.
Nick Kramarczuk, the general manager of the business that his grandparents founded in 1954, said the temporary employees make up about a third of his staff and have brought a youthful energy that’s been a boon to the restaurant’s authentic Ukrainian identity.
“They’re passionate about their culture and their food, which benefits us,” Kramarczuk said. They have new ideas, they have different ways of doing things and I’ve learned so much from them. And I think it’s pretty clear from talking with them that they’re dealing with a lot.”
Kramarczuk said he’s looking for certainty from the Trump administration about his employees’ futures because they deserve the same opportunities that his grandparents had. And even though many of the workers hope to return to Ukraine when there’s a lasting peace, Kramarczuk said for now, they deserve to be in America.