Thousands of Russians have applied for asylum in the U.S. since 2022. Trump’s ICE raids could land many of them in Putin’s prisons.
In the 10 months since Donald Trump returned to the presidency, U.S. federal immigration agents have begun carrying out frequent raids of American cities in search of people to deport. Twice over the summer, large groups of Russian nationals were expelled from the country, and at least two of them were arrested immediately after returning to Russia. As of late August, about 200,000 people had been deported from the U.S. during Trump’s second term. Meduza spoke with three Russians who applied for asylum in the U.S. because they feared persecution at home, but whose applications were denied. They’re now living as undocumented immigrants, knowing they could be deported at any time.
Eduard Glezin
Asylum application rejected after 11 years of waiting
In 2014, when [Ella] Pamfilova took over as Russia’s human rights commissioner, I was fired from that agency’s press service. Until then, all attempts by the security services to go after me for my [pro-democracy] activism had been fended off by [Vladimir] Lukin, who had been my boss for 10 years. Before my dismissal, the new head of HR put together a file of compromising material on me — including all the police reports from my detentions at protests and the corresponding court rulings. He told me he would hand everything over to his colleagues at the Federal Security Service (FSB), where he himself had worked until recently, to “check for extremism.” That could have landed me in prison for up to five years. So I decided to leave quickly.
I believed that America was the one country that could guarantee my safety. I had no dream of buying a villa or a yacht — I just wanted to save my life. My English wasn’t great, I had never been to the U.S., and I didn’t have any family there. Still, I took the risk: I came on a tourist visa and later applied for political asylum.
Back in 2014, I had to start my life from scratch. In Russia, I held a PhD in history and worked in an office. Here, I worked at a gas station, as a waiter, and as a cab driver. Now I’m a long-haul trucker — the best-paying of all the jobs I’ve had, and one of the few open to me. But I’m about to lose even that: under a new regulation, only U.S. citizens or green card holders are allowed to drive large trucks. At the same time, I need money to pay a lawyer — around $20,000. Considering I also have to cover rent, the situation is tough.
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By law, the period between applying for asylum and being called in for an interview with an immigration officer is supposed to be 45 days at most. But I had to wait 11 years. The authorities say these kinds of delays are due to a personnel shortage, but I suspect the real reason is that they’re waiting for applicants to give up and move elsewhere — or for the regimes they fled to change, so that their asylum claims no longer have grounds.
In early October 2025, my asylum claim was denied. I got the sense that the officer interviewing me had already decided to reject my case before we even spoke. He was extremely biased during the interview, and he refused to consider a report detailing the current situation in Russia, an expert statement about my case, and other evidence. He asked a lot of irrelevant questions but never the most important one: why I left Russia.
I told him about my dismissal and the threats of criminal prosecution only in my closing statement — the only opportunity I had after the interview. The officer also ignored the fact that because of my posts on Facebook and VKontakte, Roskomnadzor had repeatedly sent me letters accusing me of “discrediting” the Russian army and spreading “fake news” about it, promoting terrorism and extremism, destabilizing the public order, and personally “discrediting” Comrade Putin.
I watched justice die right before my eyes. All the immigration officers and judges [who handle asylum cases] are just bureaucrats forced to follow orders from above. In closed Facebook groups for immigrants, people often share reports about judges being fired for approving more than half of asylum applications. They’re replaced by more “disciplined” military lawyers who are instructed to follow directives and deny people residency.
I came to the U.S. before Donald Trump became president. Under [Barack] Obama and [Joe] Biden, there were no plans to deport a million migrants a year. It’s immigrants who make America great — and now the country is undermining the foundation of its own economy.
The situation has gotten even worse now, because ICE has begun patrolling highways and specifically targeting truckers. If I get caught in one of these raids, I’ll be sent to detention, which would make working with my lawyer much harder. They’ll take away my phone, and I won’t be able to make calls without special permission. And prison guards treat detainees far worse than the police do. In practice, if I’m stopped on the road, deportation will be inevitable.
After I went public about my situation this fall, human rights organizations from Poland and France reached out to me. They’re now reviewing my application for a humanitarian visa.
Many [immigrants in situations like mine] prefer to stay silent, hoping for a favorable court decision. I’ve chosen to speak out — to warn anyone planning to leave Russia to think very carefully before seeking asylum in America under the current administration.
Vladislav Krasnov
Spent more than a year and a half in detention before having his asylum application denied in spring 2025
In Russia, I volunteered with [late opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s] Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and was one of the organizers of the “indefinite protest” [against pension reform in 2018]. For obvious reasons, my family and I didn’t want to have anything to do with the war in Ukraine — not even indirectly, by paying taxes. So we decided to leave the country. Besides, my colleague Dima Ivanov had just been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison, and I didn’t want to share his fate. I decided to move to the U.S. — I believed asylum cases there were reviewed impartially and that officials actually looked at the evidence.
At first, I tried to apply for a student visa — my plan was to improve my English and get a degree. But my application was rejected. I felt unsafe in the country where I was staying at the time, so I decided to try reaching the U.S. through Mexico. I went alone; my family stayed behind. I downloaded the CBP One app in advance — it had been introduced by the Biden administration to help asylum seekers avoid crossing the border illegally. Through the app, I notified U.S. border officials of my intention to apply for asylum, and I was assigned a specific time to cross.
As far as I know, everyone who crossed that way was processed properly: they submitted fingerprints, filled out the necessary paperwork, and awaited their asylum hearings while free. But by August 2023, when I reached the border, Biden had apparently issued informal instructions for some migrants to be detained for “extra screening.”
After I crossed the U.S. border I was sent to a holding cell — a 20-square-meter room packed with 25 people. We slept on yoga mats and covered ourselves with foil blankets. A week later, I was inexplicably transferred to Mississippi — a different state, meaning a different jurisdiction. I had been headed to California, where I had a sponsor and friends, and where asylum cases are approved much more often than in Republican-run Mississippi or Louisiana. In those states, the statistics are grim: judges approve barely two percent of asylum claims.
I went through my interview, but I wasn’t released from detention. Officers were letting maybe one person out of every 50 go free, even though our cases and evidence were practically identical. I ended up stuck in detention for three weeks, in a barracks with 75 beds for 150 people. The routine was absurd: breakfast at 4:00 a.m., lunch at 10:00, dinner at 4:00 p.m. Communication was another problem — some people couldn’t reach their families for weeks. It was, in a word, absurd.
I spent more than six months in detention. After my interview, I was scheduled for a court hearing in Los Angeles in 2024 — but a few days later I received a letter saying my case had been transferred to Louisiana. It’s a Republican state, and some lawyers call it a “deportation hub.”
On March 1 — the day of Navalny’s funeral — I was brought before the court. I presented evidence showing I faced persecution in Russia: court records, letters from [human rights activist] Lev Ponomaryov, TV Rain, and [human rights organization] OVD-Info confirming that I had volunteered with FBK, that they knew me personally, and that I was in real danger. But it wasn’t enough. Instead of discussing my case, the judge fixated on the fact that I had been an election observer, and we spent an hour talking about the Russian electoral system.
My lawyer made several mistakes that affected the outcome — for example, he failed to submit my full persecution history. As a result, the case materials contained inconsistencies.
Later, I obtained additional evidence: a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights confirming that my detentions in Russia had been unlawful; interviews I’d given to media outlets like The Guardian; and new letters of support from Memorial, [Russian opposition politician Ilya] Yashin, and many other public figures.
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After the hearing, I filed an appeal — and while it was pending, I learned that my lawyer had lost his license. In July, I found a new attorney, but in August I was put in cuffs — on both my hands and feet, like in a movie — and transferred from Louisiana to New Jersey for deportation.
At the airport, I managed to talk to the officers out of putting me on the plane. I gave them my appeal number and insisted they take me back to detention. I’ve heard that in cases like this, people are sometimes literally shoved onto planes, kicked inside, and sent to Russia via Dubai, Cairo, Istanbul, or Qatar.
When I was brought back to Louisiana, I was released from detention under a pre-trial agreement, thanks to the fact that I had joined a lawsuit against former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. In late October, after 14.5 months in custody, I finally left Louisiana and went to California, where a friend who had agreed to sponsor me took me in.
I’m now trying to reopen my asylum case as part of new proceedings. Appeals don’t take new evidence into account — which is why I had to rely on the limited documents my first lawyer filed. Now I’m determined to see this case through.
At the same time, I can’t leave the U.S. After my release, I had no documents — they were taken when I crossed the border. I don’t know where they are now, and after so many transfers, I doubt they’ve survived.
These days, I’ve found a kind of calm — a “zen” about it all. It was hard at first, especially being away from my family, and particularly in detention. I was there when detainees were still given 500 free phone minutes, but that program ended in June 2024, and now every call costs money.
A lot of people break down in immigration detention. There are no clear timelines for legalization, and in Republican states, under Trump’s current policies, getting asylum is practically impossible. In the end, many simply give up and ask to be sent back.
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Nikolai (name changed)
Spent more than two years in migration detention and has appealed his deportation ruling
Russia’s armed attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, was a shock unlike anything I had ever experienced. Comparable only to losing someone close to you. Over the next couple of months, as reports of war crimes mounted and most Russians remained indifferent, it became clear to me that I couldn’t go on living in that kind of environment.
I staged a one-man protest in my city and was given a jail sentence for it. Afterward, security officers came to warn me — along with my 83-year-old, seriously ill mother — that if I didn’t stop, I would end up in prison. My mother was in tears, begging me not to go out again.
But I wanted to protest constantly — almost every time I read the news from Ukraine. I promised my mother I would stop and started preparing to leave the country. I wrapped up work projects, sold some property, and began the process of getting my passport for foreign travel.
After the announcement of Russia’s “partial mobilization,” I bought a ticket to Yerevan. During my first months abroad, I realized I needed to move on — Armenia wasn’t my culture, even though it’s a democratic country and generally friendly to Russians.
I hadn’t planned to seek asylum anywhere. I considered applying for a German work visa, but at 45, I was told by an integration center that health insurance becomes significantly more expensive at that age and that employers rarely hire “older” applicants.
Europe also felt closer to me than the U.S., but by 2023, I couldn’t find a way to get there from Armenia. Meanwhile, several of my acquaintances had gone to the United States. After crossing the border from Mexico, they received local driver’s licenses, work permits and waited for their asylum hearings while living freely.
One of them advised me to do the same. He didn’t regret his choice — and still doesn’t — and I respected him enough to follow his example. It never occurred to me that I might end up in immigration detention. There was the CBP One app, which seemed like a perfectly legal way to enter the U.S. All the online reviews I found were positive: people waited for their assigned date, crossed the border, received a “Form I-94,” and lived legally in the U.S. while awaiting their court date. There was no mention of arrests or detention.
I flew to Mexico City in July 2023 and registered in the CBP One app the same day. At the end of August, I was told to appear at a specific location and time for an appointment with a border officer at the San Ysidro Pedestrian Crossing.
My asylum request was denied in May 2024 — because I had traveled back to Russia few times from Armenia to wrap up personal affairs. The judge decided my encounters with the police didn’t amount to persecution. I was dissatisfied with the ruling and felt I hadn’t been given a full chance to present my arguments in court.
I appealed to a higher authority, but the appeal was rejected, fully upholding the immigration judge’s decision. At first, I resigned myself to it and began preparing for deportation. (Immigration authorities had ruled to send me to Russia, even though I asked to be deported to Armenia.) But when I reread the decision, I realized how superficial it was — it failed to address key arguments I had raised on appeal, such as my involvement in Navalny-linked organizations and my financial support for them. On top of that, I could face prosecution in Russia for donations I made from Armenia to Ukrainian charities.
So without much hope, I filed a second appeal while continuing to prepare for deportation. To my surprise, the federal appellate court was sympathetic: it appointed a pro bono lawyer for me and issued an order halting my deportation. Now I’m waiting for the final decision, which could come any day.
In addition, in June I filed a motion in a federal district court in Pennsylvania, arguing that my detention had dragged on too long. During the hearing, the federal judge sided with me and criticized ICE for keeping me locked up without sufficient justification.
At the moment, I’m awaiting two rulings: one on my release from immigration detention, and another on my asylum case. If deportation does happen, I’ll try to escape during a flight transfer — to avoid being sent back to Russia. I know of cases where deportees managed to pull that off. Much will depend on the country the layover is in — and, of course, on luck. So far, I haven’t had much of that.
A human rights advocate’s take
Anna Shumova, chair of the board of directors of Russian Seattle for Freedom, which helps Russian immigrants in the U.S.
The biggest wave of Russians seeking political asylum in the U.S. came in 2022–2023, during the Biden administration. For those crossing the U.S.–Mexico border through the CBP One app, wait times varied widely: at first, it might take just a couple of weeks, but by 2023–2024, people were waiting up to ten months.
Things started to change in June 2024, when a memo directed immigration officials to keep all Russian nationals in detention until their court hearings. It’s hard to say how fairly U.S. immigration courts evaluate cases from other countries — I only work with Russians — but it seems clear the current crackdown affects asylum seekers across the board.
With Trump’s return to the White House, one major thing shifted: deportations became large-scale and routine. Multiple flights to Russia now leave each month. Many immigration judges have been dismissed, and the rest, in my view, are trying to adapt to the new reality to keep their jobs.
Another telling sign came in August, when the Trump administration released the State Department’s annual report on human rights in Russia. This year’s edition was almost three times shorter than the previous one — 41 pages instead of 110. The section on LGBTQ+ rights was cut entirely, and political repression was described as something that affects only prominent journalists, activists, and public figures — not ordinary citizens.
For Russians whose asylum requests and appeals have been denied, finding another way to legalize their status in the U.S. is extremely difficult. Marriage to an American citizen is technically an option, but in practice, most people try to reopen their cases instead. After that first hearing, asylum seekers usually understand what the court was looking for and where their case was weak. If they get another chance, they do everything they can to strengthen their evidence and collect more testimony.
The reality in detention centers doesn’t vary much between conservative and liberal states. ICE — the federal agency that runs all of them — sets the tone nationwide. And the U.S. prison system has never been known for its compassion. The problems are the same everywhere: no medical care, constant psychological pressure, no sense of what’s ahead, limited access to lawyers or family, no documents, computers, or phones, bad food, and filthy conditions.
Once the U.S. denies your asylum claim, getting protection elsewhere is nearly impossible. That’s why Russians have to explore any possible route — work or student visas, or residency through investment programs. The only relatively safe way to leave the U.S. after losing a case is if you weren’t in detention at the time of the decision. Otherwise, deportation to Russia is almost guaranteed.
In terms of anxiety levels, life for Russians waiting for a decision from the immigration court feels a lot like life in Russia. You’re constantly expecting that you might be thrown in jail, and you never know where you’ll run into law enforcement. On top of that, you don’t have a work permit or any rights.