Russian Asylum Seekers Face New Challenges at U.S. Border
Many Russian citizens and individuals from other Post-Soviet countries are detained at detention centers upon arrival in the United States (Flickr).
The U.S. government is currently detaining Russian citizens seeking asylum in the United States at the U.S.-Mexico border. Prior to approximately June 2024, U.S. officials typically released detainees from detention within a few weeks, allowing them to seek legal assistance afterward. However, since then, the U.S. government has begun holding individuals—including Russian opposition figures, anti-war activists, and persecuted minorities—in detention facilities for indefinite periods, granting them limited access to the outside world, according to RADR. Despite persisting for months, this issue has received little media coverage.
Dmitry Valuev, president of Russian America for Democracy in Russia (RADR), has been in contact with several asylum seekers detained in these centers. His organization, an anti-Putin non-profit labeled “undesirable” by the Russian government, is working to organize task force groups to assist those in urgent need and to consolidate information regarding the detentions. In an interview with the author, Valuev explained that “we need to understand how the situation changes, and also want to be ready because we understand it might happen again in the future. We hope to create an infrastructure of support for these asylum seekers.”
According to Valuev, Russian asylum seekers are expected to participate in immigration court hearings while in detention to prove their refugee status. It is imperative that these individuals are able to present a compelling argument to the immigration judge, as failure to successfully plead their case would entail deportation and persecution in Russia.
Their cases, however, are not easily won. Many Russian refugees cannot access their funds, which makes securing legal assistance nearly impossible. Stripped of their personal electronics, they struggle to retrieve the evidence necessary to support their cases without the aid of a lawyer, per Slavic Sacramento. Valuev also stressed that the language barrier greatly hinders these individuals’ ability to defend themselves during questioning. “The real issue became obvious when we realized that, in addition to people being held in detention facilities, they have to defend themselves in front of the court. This combination—being in prison, not having an attorney, being forced to prepare the case and all the documents, and then defending those documents in front of lawyers—creates a huge frustration, because 99.9% of asylum seekers do not know the asylum system,” he said. These challenges, compounded with the fear of persecution upon deportation, create immense psychological strain for those in custody.
Furthermore, there is no official documentation that explains the reason for these detentions. Some immigration lawyers speculate that there are concerns about Russian intelligence officers and ISIS operatives crossing into the U.S., especially during election season. “We don’t know if ‘security ban’ is a legal term; it is simply something that has been circulated among immigration lawyers,” Valuev clarified. “We also don’t know whether the term is indefinite or if an end date has been established.” There is, additionally, no official list of affected countries, though individuals from Georgia, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan have also been impacted, per Slavic Sacramento.
Valuev highlighted the challenges Russian immigrants face when seeking asylum in the United States, noting that ICE officers and immigration judges often fail to understand the differing circumstances for immigrants from various countries. Most asylum seekers from South and Central America already have family in the country for support, along with access to organizations offering pro bono legal assistance. In contrast, Russians fleeing persecution lack these established support systems. While RADR has been providing aid to these individuals, the relatively small scale of the organization, which was only founded in 2021, and the lack of substantial funding, have limited the reach of their efforts.
Valuev further detailed the situation of one young same-sex couple that was forced to flee Russia following the government’s crackdown on LGBT unions. Officials recently transferred one partner to a different detention facility due to overcrowding, complicating efforts to present their case; when the U.S. government transfers individuals to detention centers in other states, separated family members must file their cases individually. The only way for them to communicate is through a sponsor, who is difficult to find. “At the detention facility in California, both of them were in pretty difficult psychological conditions,” he stated.
Another pair of detainees are Yakut activists Maxim and Liza, administrators of one of Yakutia’s most prominent anti-war Telegram channels, “Board of Z-shame of Yakutia.” They fled to the United States in late July 2024 after threats from the Russian Center for Combating Extremism, but were immediately detained upon arrival. Despite having already attended three hearings, they struggled to find proper legal representation, access their evidence, and to navigate the asylum process due to their lack of English proficiency. However, RADR has since raised funds to hire an attorney for Maxim and Liza.
Valuev added that the U.S. government had also detained a different activist, who was involved in the Termless (Bessrochny) Protest movement, for about thirteen months. The activist ultimately lost his case and was in the process of filing an appeal. His past experiences with the asylum process were challenging. Valuev noted that, “while he has a stockpile of recommendation letters from organizations he worked with in the past, nothing has helped.” Moreover, the individual suffered from an autoimmune disease that the detention center could not properly address because it lacks a medical system designed for long-term stays. Prior to his release on October 23, RADR was working to find him a doctor.
In a parallel development, thirty relatives of detained individuals recently decided to sue the Biden administration, submitting a claim to a Southern Californian district court about a month ago in the Sharikov v. Mayorkas case, according to PacerMonitor. According to Valuev, plaintiffs have indicated that the Department of Homeland Security has shown little interest in hearings and is instead focused on releasing all the detainees mentioned in the petition—last week, the government released five out of the thirty individuals, although one was due to medical reasons, and similarly, the Bessrochny activist was likely released because his mother was one of the plaintiffs in the case. Valuev noted that this success has inspired other asylum seekers to start preparing a new court case, which may involve hundreds of plaintiffs.
Valuev spoke to the irony that one of the Bessrochny activist’s friends is currently imprisoned in Russia for his political views, while the activist himself was detained in a similar facility—but in a country that was supposed to uphold the very values he champions. Ultimately, Valuev stressed the need for the government to create more just and compassionate conditions for those they have allowed into the United States.