A community braces for a decision that could change thousands of lives in the U.S. and Nepal. BY PEARL BHATNAGAR
Shivani is afraid she will lose her legal status in the United States.
She sits with me in a conference room at Adhikaar, a women-led worker and community center in Queens, surrounded by posters detailing strategic plans and major deadlines. Shivani paints a portrait of her life as an undocumented immigrant: fear of separation from her U.S.-born grandchild, wage theft by the owner of her nail salon, and the inaccessibility of healthcare in her old age. She has been undocumented before, and she is bracing herself for a difficult future.
Meanwhile, her grandson, whom she babysits regularly, passes the time by her side, doodling on spare sheets of paper.
“How do you spell ‘worry?’” he asks no one in particular, eyes still glued to his art.
By the time Shivani wraps up her story, her grandson gifts her with a colorful note. “Don’t warry about it,” it says in crayon, reassuring his ma that things will turn out alright.
“Don’t warry about it.”
Fears like Shivani’s are stoked in Queens and in communities across the country where some 9,000 Nepalis may possess Temporary Protected Status as their only form of documentation. The Department of Homeland Security will decide by April 25 whether to renew or revoke TPS for Nepali nationals. Launched in 1990, the TPS program offers relief to migrants whose countries cannot absorb them due to environmental disaster or armed conflict.
The majority of Nepali TPS holders toil in the most unprotected, underpaid and undervalued industries today – as domestic workers, nail salons technicians and restaurant workers.
During an ambiguous time, comfort for the Nepali community in Queens takes the form of both emotional labor and community engagement. The women of Adhikaar, who spearheaded the campaign to gain TPS in the first place in 2015, are at the forefront of today’s fight to keep it alive.
TPS holders have many questions: What would it mean to readjust to a life without basic protections, to navigate not only the threat of deportation, but also workplace dynamics rife with exploitation? How do they prepare for what could be the worst?
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