HUDSON SQUARE — When Russian-born Vera Kondratyeva was seven years old, her parents sent her to live with her aunt in another part of Moscow. Twelve years later, she made her way alone to the United States on a temporary work visa to be a lifeguard in South Carolina. She's only heard from her parents a handful of times ever since.
She eventually worked her way to New York through a combination of student visas and work visas, and was running out of options when she stumbled across a Hudson Square nonprofit that has helped more than 800 immigrants like her secure a green card to remain in the U.S. permanently.
"They really helped me a lot," Kondratyeva said, "I jumped up and down when I got the call [of being approved for a green card]. I was so happy."
Comprehensive youth services organization The Door, which is located at 555 Broome St., handles a significant number of national applications for a little-known immigration status that allows immigrants under age 21 who suffered abuse, neglect or abandonment by their parents to become permanent, legal U.S. residents, the group's legal services director Helen Pundurs said.
But the opportunity for immigrants like Kondratyeva to obtain a green card through the program could be in jeopardy as federal funding for immigrant youth who have suffered abuse or neglect at the hands of their parents is on the chopping block, according to the city's Department of Youth and Community Development.
Under federal immigration law, immigrant youth are eligible for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status if they can prove that they are younger than 21, are unmarried and have been declared dependent upon a juvenile court, explained Pooja Asnani, Kondratyeva's lawyer at The Door.
Applicants for the status must also be able to prove that they cannot be reunified with their parents and that it is not in their best interest to return to their country of origin, Asnani said.
The Door handled 113 such cases in 2010, Pundurs said. Fewer than 1,500 such cases were approved nationally within the same period, according to Department of Homeland Security figures.
Department of Youth and Community Development Deputy Commissioner Suzanne M. Lynn warned New York City's social service organizations in an email this summer that funding through federal Community Service Block Grants are facing minimum cuts of 50 percent.
Grant recipients including The Door were instructed to limit their spending to the amounts they had already been advanced. Other expenditures might not be reimbursed, the message said.
A spokesman for the department said these federal cuts would harm New York youth in need.
"CSGB funding is literally there for those New Yorkers who need it most. Cutting this funding during a time when many New Yorkers are struggling would be devastating," he said.
If The Door had less funding, the group would be forced to take on fewer legal clients, Pundurs said.
Kondratyeva said she learned about the organization from a friend, and that she was surprised and relived to hear that she could possibly stay in the U.S. legally because of her difficult childhood.
She said she'd only spoken to her parents a few times in close to two decades, and that she felt alone in the world.
"It feels sad. Why didn't my parents want to take care of me? I never had a real family like other people do," said Kondratyeva, now 21 and an employee at a Downtown bakery.
To be able to stay in the U.S., Kondratyeva managed to get a student visa to study English in San Francisco, where she stayed for the academic year before she returned to South Carolina, she said.
Then, she came to New York in August 2010 to continue studying English. She lived with friends of a friend and found her bakery job, but she didn't like the language school she had chosen and the amount of time remaining on her student visa was running out, she said.
With the help of the Door, she was able to obtain the green card by Sept. 2011, approximately eight months after applying.
Kondratyeva is applying to CUNY colleges and is interested in studying business, linguistics and photography, she said.
She's also planning a visit to Moscow, to attend a friend's wedding, for the first time since she left. She said she was not sure if she would call her parents to tell them she was in town.
"I don't know what kind of relationship we could have now," she said.
