Immigration Status Bars Nepali Restaurant Owner from Federal Loans

Due to the Corona epidemic, more than a thousand restaurants in New York City were permanently closed in 2020 alone. Among them there were some Nepali restaurants in Queens. However, Nepali Bhanchha Ghar Restaurant, located on Roosevelt Avenue between 74th Street and 75th Street in Jackson Heights, managed to stay afloat despite not being able to get a Corona-related federal Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) due to the immigration status of the restaurant owner, Yamuna Shrestha.

In Nepal, Yamuna was an entrepreneur. She had a furniture industry in Walling of Syangja and was also a founding member of the Syangja Chamber of Commerce and Industry. When she came to the USA in 2008 and applied for asylum, she was rejected, putting her in a ‘deferred removal proceedings’ status. She worked as live-in domestic for almost 7 years. With the money she earned, she decided to start a restaurant business.

In June 24, 2015, following an earthquake in Nepal, the Obama administration provided Temporary Protection Status (TPS) to undocumented Nepalis living in the United States. Based on this, Yamuna was able to obtain a work permit.

In 2015, she and several partners opened the first Nepali Bhanchha Ghar restaurant on Roosevelt Avenue on 37 Road, but it closed down. The current Nepali Bhanchha Ghar restaurant opened in August 2019 on Roosevelt Avenue. Even though a Nepali restaurant had been operating at the same locale before and had closed several times due to changes in management, Yamuna Shrestha gathered the courage to open a new restaurant at the same location with her own money.

Within 6 months of opening the restaurant, the world was hit by the Corona epidemic. By April 2020, New York City had become the new epicenter of the epidemic forcing the restaurant to close completely for 3 months. After reopening, the restaurant still could not operate fully until the vaccine was widely available to provide safeguards against Covid.

Yamuna Shrestha hoped she could get a low-interest Covid-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) from the Small Business Administration (SBA). Her initial application for an SBA’s EIDL loan of $83,000 was approved. However, because she did not have a green card or citizenship certificate, requisites for the loan, she was refused the money. As a result, she had to secure a personal loan of nearly $150,000 dollars to put into the restaurant’s operation. Yamuna expressed her disappointment. “It was heard that others got loans even if they did not have a green card or citizenship, even if they submitted other documents. But why didn’t we get it?” Yamuna asks.

“We are also paying taxes like other businesses. We are providing [and] creating employment and serving to the community. As residents of the USA, we are contributing to the economy. But we were discriminated against when trying to obtain loans,” said the 53-year-old Yamuna expressing her grief.

We posed this question to SBA Public Affairs Specialist Christalyn Solomon, who explained, “A non-US citizen who owns 20 percent or more of the business and resides in the U.S. was eligible for COVID EIDL if they were classified as a ‘non-citizen national’ or ‘qualified alien.’ Qualified aliens include permanent residents with a current green card.”

SBA’s Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) outlines the eligibility requirements for loans, and the application process. Eligible aliens include green card holders, people who have been granted asylum, people who have entered the United States as refugees, people who have been paroled in the US for at least 1 year, and people who are on deferred deportation proceedings.

According to a report issued by the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Inspector General, the SBA received 27.7 million applications for COVID EIDLs by December 31, 2021. On January 1, 2022, the SBA stopped accepting applications for new COVID EIDLs or advance payments (grants). As of May 6, 2022, the SBA’s COVID EIDL funds were exhausted, and the SBA stopped accepting COVID EIDL loan increase requests or requests for reconsideration. The SBA closed the online COVID EIDL application portal on May 16, 2022. The SBA approved over 3.9 million EIDLs, totaling over $378.4 billion. Among the approved applications, 339,354 were from businesses in New York that received $37.5 billion.  Three million applicants withdrew their applications, and the SBA ultimately rejected 7.1 million applications. The SBA received 761,000 reconsideration requests, of which only 162,000 applications had been approved.

Yamuna also mentioned that she could not even get the Small Business Opportunity Fund’s low-interest loan, the latest program introduced by New York City, which prioritizes recovering businesses run by women and immigrants. “We had hoped to get this loan, but it was also rejected,” she said.

Urgen Sherpa, senior small business organizer of Chhaya CDC, a community non-profit organization working for the economic development of South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities, said that they are working to pressure the people’s elected representatives regarding businesses such as Nepali Bhanchha Ghar that could not get loans due to their immigration status. He said, “We have informed the representatives of this area about this. A commitment to work in this regard has also come from the office of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.”

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez even visited Bhanchha Ghar and met with the owner and listened to her story. Yamuna Shrestha said that during the meeting, Ocasio Cortez confirmed that she had been discriminated against and that she would raise her voice and try to help.

Diego de la Vega, Ocasio Cortez’s district communications manager, assured that the congresswoman is proud to represent the largest Nepali diaspora community in the United States. Last year, she succeeded in securing $2 million to create the first South Asian community space.

De la Vega said that the space, run by CDC, provides various supports that are made accessible through Nepali translation and interpretation. He also mentioned that it is important for the congresswoman to see Nepali small businesses succeed. By visiting restaurants, listening to the owners’ concerns, and calling for support to help businesses like Gorkhali Restaurant keep its doors open, the congresswoman is working to help her neighbors thrive.

Nepali Bhanchha Ghar Restaurant: A Momo Sensation in NYC

Despite the economic hurdles posed by the pandemic and her immigration status, Nepali Bhanchha Ghar Restaurant is a five-time winner at the annual Momo Crawl in New York City and has received positive reviews from The New York Times and Eater for their momo dumplings. Yamuna attributes winning the Momo Crawl and favorable media coverage to the increase of her customer base.

“Suddenly, customers started pouring in. Not just from the Nepali community, but from other communities as well. We were surprised by the crowd. Later, we found out that there were news and reviews about us in various media, including The New York Times.”

Momos are their best-selling item, customers come to the restaurant not only to enjoy them but also buy them frozen to take home. They offer delivery through apps such as Uber, Grubhub, DoorDash, and Seamless. The restaurant opens at 8 am and stays open till 11 pm. Yamuna starts work early in the morning, serving customers with a smile until evening.

To create more business, they have added new items to the menu after the pandemic, but the increased rent and inflation have also raised the cost of running the restaurant. Despite this, they have not increased the price of their food and are serving it at the same price as before the pandemic, unlike many other restaurants in the city.

Yamuna hopes to attract more customers by organizing their social media and updating their current website, She says, “Customers come by looking at social media, including Instagram. Feedback on social media is also good, but due to a lack of technical knowledge, we have not been able to organize it. We need someone to work on it.”

Regardless of Economic Success, Tax-paying Yamuna Struggles to Reunite with her Family

On April 4, 2023, it will have been exactly 15 years since Yanuma arrived in the United States. Her 4-year-old daughter, who was left behind in Nepal is now 19, and her 8-year-old son is now 23. Yamuna has not been able to meet in person with her children and husband for 15 years.

The drive and ambition for business that has brought her success as an entrepreneur in New York has come at a cost – she has been separated from her family for a long time.

“It hurts to be away from my family. I wanted to provide my children with a good education in the USA. They also wanted to study here. But because of my asylum, the US Embassy in Kathmandu rejected their student visa applications. That’s why they couldn’t come,” she laments.

Yamuna says that her only hope is TPS, which can issue a travel document. She is one of the nearly 14,000 Nepali TPS holders in the USA. Immigrant rights activists have been demanding a permanent solution for TPS holders. In his election pledge, Joe Biden promised to provide a pathway to a green card for those covered by TPS and DACA, but the promise has not been fulfilled yet.

Last year, Yamuna had planned to visit her family with a travel document from TPS. However, due to the heavy backlog in the US Citizen and Immigration Services, her travel document was approved only a few days before the TPS document’s expiration date of December 31, 2022. She was unable to visit her family. Now the deadline for TPS documents for Nepalis has been extended until June 30, 2024. Yamuna has applied for a new travel document.

She says, “Once the new travel document arrives, I want to visit my family. It would be ideal to provide a permanent solution to those in TPS by granting them a green card. I want to show my family the USA.”

(This story was produced as part of the Small Business Reporting Fellowship, organized by the Center for Community Media and funded by the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment.)