“Russia arrested me in absentia, but an American court said I faced no danger back home”: How Russians are being deported from the U.S.

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The names of those interviewed have been changed.

“No blankets, no mattresses, we slept on the floor”: What deportations look like

“On the night of June 10, they took me away to process documents. They put on handcuffs and shackles, loaded us into a bus and drove us to an airport in Louisiana,” said Eva, one of the asylum seekers deported back to Russia from the United States. She was on the charter flight that arrived in Moscow on June 14 — the first of many. According to rights groups, that flight carried at least 40 Russian citizens.

Eva left Russia in the winter of 2024. Like many others fleeing the country, she decided to travel to Mexico, cross the U.S. border, and turn herself in to immigration officials.

After arriving in Mexico City, Eva waited four months for an appointment through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection app CBP One. After her border interview, she was sent to the Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, Louisiana, before being transferred to the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile. It was there that she went through court hearings and an appeal.

“Detention in Basile is quite the ride. About 70 people in a single room. No proper food, no sleep, no medical care. No system at all. One officer tells you something is allowed, another says it isn’t. They count you like chickens every single day. At first you stress out, but after six months you have no strength or emotions left,” Eva said.

According to Dmitry Valuev, president of the group Russian America for Democracy in Russia, women are most often sent to the South Louisiana detention center: “Those we spoke with said that there were about 200 Russian women there at the beginning of summer. Now it’s closer to 100. Some have been granted asylum, but that’s just a handful. The rest have been deported.”

Conditions at Richwood were no better, Eva recalled, explaining that there were “rusty beds, disgusting food, an outdoor yard for walks that looked like a pen, and 100 people crammed in one room,” she said.

The flow of asylum applicants has been so large that people are placed in detention en masse. “In Louisiana, up to 90% of arrivals were sent to detention centers,” said Valuev. “Russians make up about 1% of those seeking asylum at the Mexican border, but a significant number of them end up in detention.”

That led to difficulties adapting to the new conditions. “We had escape attempts at our detention center. After that they tightened surveillance, even when you were just leaving units for the cafeteria or medical appointments. They often searched lockers and beds. You could order items from the commissary online, but even what you bought didn’t belong to you — they could take it away at any time,” Eva said.

The psychological strain, she recounted, was compounded by the long wait for a ruling on her appeal. She waited more than four months for a final decision. When the denial came in April 2025, she began mentally preparing for deportation. In all, she spent one year and two weeks in detention.

When shackled and taken to a Louisiana airport, Eva didn’t know whether she was being deported or simply transferred elsewhere.

“At the airport they put me on a plane to Dallas. The flight was short, but when we landed, still in handcuffs and shackles, they put us in a van and drove us to the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado. No one answered questions. It was impossible to know whether I would stay there or be sent on to deportation,” she explained.

Eva was held at Prairieland overnight. Conditions there, she said, were grim. “They took me to a small, cold, dirty room. There was a toilet and a metal bench. There were 16 or 17 of us women. In other identical rooms they were processing men. I stayed there from 4 p.m. to midnight.”

During that time, Eva recalled, a representative of the Russian consulate arrived. He called some people in for questioning, promised they would soon be taken to the airport for a flight to Cairo, and warned women against escape attempts, saying Arabs were “extremely brutal.”

“Then they moved us to another room — larger, but just as cold. No blankets, no mattresses. We slept on the floor. They gave us dry rations. No one answered questions. At 5:30 they came for us again. Shackles back on, everyone checked against a list, a number written on each arm. Everything was done very roughly, as if we were criminals, but by then we were too exhausted to care,” she recounted.

From there, Eva and others were taken to the airport. “They searched us for a long time, checked our belongings. We went up the boarding stairs escorted by men [ICE officers and U.S. law enforcement personnel]. They gripped our forearms harshly, as if someone might run. The handcuffs were pulled very tight, and whenever we asked to loosen them, they checked and said everything was fine. Bathroom breaks were allowed, but they only unshackled one hand, which made it extremely uncomfortable.”

There were about 20 escorts, she said. In Washington, another group of deportees was brought aboard. The charter flight stopped in Romania for refueling before landing in Egypt.

“In Cairo they finally took off the handcuffs. They escorted us down the stairs to the baggage area, where all our things had been dumped on the tarmac. They filmed us as we searched for our bags,” Eva explained.

After collecting their belongings, deportees were put on a bus and taken to a waiting area. Only then was Eva able to retrieve her phone from her luggage and call her family. “I called right away. None of my relatives knew where I was. Two hours later, escorted by Egyptian security, we went to board [the plane]. The security check was extremely strict. On the plane we sat two to a row, with a security officer as the third passenger.”

When the plane landed at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, deportees were interrogated in the presence of the Federal Security Service (FSB).

“They went through the entire phone: photos, contacts, notes. They asked why I went to the U.S., what happened in detention, whether officers offered me cooperation, where I got money, how I learned to cross the border, what I think about the ‘special military operation,’ and whether I had relatives in the U.S. or Ukraine. After the interrogation we had to wait a long time to get back our passports and other documents,” Eva said.

When she reached her hometown, she was summoned again. “A week later I was called to the FSB office. They didn’t check my phone this time, [they] just asked questions and let me go,” she recalled.

It is unclear exactly how many Russians are in Eva’s position. Human rights advocates do not have a complete list of those deported over the summer, and U.S. immigration authorities do not publish one. What is clear, they say, is that deportations that were once handled individually on commercial flights are now conducted on large charter planes under heavy guard.

Most likely, said Valuev, the change was made to prevent people from altering their final destination. “Before, people could ask border guards for their passports back and buy a ticket to another country. On the latest flights that was impossible. I know in August some resisted — they didn’t want to fly to Moscow — but Egyptian authorities used force,” he said.

Valuev added that such measures may be tied to the growing number of asylum denials. “Russians began being held in detention en masse starting in mid-2024. Around the same time, more people began losing court cases, especially those involving political claims. By March and April 2025, the number of people who had lost cases had built up significantly.”

Valuev’s Russian America for Democracy in Russia organization is now raising money for a lawyer to represent antiwar activists Svetlana and Igor Orzhevsky. On Aug. 22, a judge denied them asylum, ruling that they faced no threat in Russia. They plan to file an appeal.

“My husband was with me at every protest, but the judge demanded photos. We didn’t have any”: Inside the asylum hearings

Svetlana Orzhevskaya has been arrested in absentia in Russia on charges of spreading “fake news” about the army, while her son faces charges of inciting hatred, rehabilitating Nazism, and spreading “fake news.” He has been placed on a wanted list and added to the country’s official registry of “terrorists and extremists.”

“Despite clear and convincing evidence of persecution for freedom of expression, the court ruled that it was ‘safe’ for us to return and denied asylum because supposedly we ‘faced no threat there.’ My son even cited statistics from a 2024 report by the [NGO] Memorial on political repression in Russia. [It’s] the same data the U.S. State Department regularly cites in its annual human rights reports on Russia. It had no effect,” Orzhevskaya said.

She added that she suffers from multiple serious health conditions that make life in detention extremely difficult. They worsen under constant stress. “I have late-stage osteoarthritis, back pain from a hernia and spinal protrusion, dangerously high systolic blood pressure up to 230 mmHg if I don’t take medication, severe headaches and migraines. My hair has even started falling out from the constant fear that my son and I will be deported back to Russia.”

Human rights advocate Margarita Kuchusheva of the Anti-War Committee’s Consuls project, which supports Russians opposing the war, agreed that the process is often arbitrary.

“Almost every deportation we know of stems from a denial of political asylum. I’ve spoken with people whose cases were weak, but also with volunteers and donors from antiwar groups with clear political activity. There’s no logic in the refusals. It depends entirely on the state and the judge. Sometimes people with barely any case at all are granted asylum, while others with far stronger claims are rejected,” Kuchusheva said.

Valuev argued that bias against Russian refugees more broadly may also play a role.

“We see Russians being detained en masse, along with other nationals from post-Soviet states. There may be internal reasons that no one has explained. We suspect it is linked to national security concerns. Like in Europe, U.S. authorities may fear spies entering as refugees. Lacking the means to separate the ‘good’ from the ‘bad,’ they tightened the rules. I think the hostile attitude toward political asylum cases comes from the same place,” he said.

Either way, the option of changing destinations in transit — possible during individual deportations — has now been eliminated. “The only way out now is through the help of human rights defenders, and only if the deportation is on a regular airline flight, not a charter under armed escort. I think this practice will only expand, inevitably leading to more political prisoners in Russia,” Kuchusheva noted.

The shift was evident during the latest mass deportation on Aug. 27. This time the route included stops in Guantánamo Bay and Puerto Rico. There were also more deportees than in June, gathered from two different facilities — a transit detention center in Alexandria and one in Guantánamo.

According to Valuev, that charter included people with political cases. “But I suspect there were other asylum cases as well. Probably most of them,” he said.

A man named Vadim might have been deported on that Aug. 27 flight if his wife, Veronika, had not managed to reach their lawyer in time.

“I’m just an ordinary person who fell into Russia’s system of repression,” she said. Veronika often joined rallies and supported protest actions. The last was laying flowers after the death of opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny. “They tried to arrest me then and demanded my passport. But I said I had the right not to carry one. I gave them my name so they wouldn’t take me away, but the next morning officers from Center ‘E’ came to our home,” she recalled, describing the Russian law enforcement branch tasked with fighting “extremism.”

According to Veronika, the officers forced her to sign a warning that she was participating in unsanctioned extremist activities. “I wrote to OVD-Info, and they advised us to leave if we could, because a criminal case against me could be opened at any moment.”

The couple decided to go to the United States, where they had friends who promised to help. “The thought of America as a safe haven gave us strength. America always protected people. It gave asylum,” Veronika said.

At the border, the couple was separated — Veronika sent to a detention center in El Paso, Vadim to one in New Mexico. Each had their own court case, scheduled separately. Vadim’s hearings came first — and he lost. Veronika, however, won her case.

“Vadim was always with me at the protests, when we laid flowers. But the judge demanded to see photographs, and we didn’t have any. He said, ‘If I were preparing to apply for asylum, I’d have taken dozens of photos,’” Veronika said bitterly.

In many cases, when one spouse wins asylum, they can file a motion to close the other’s case. But Veronika’s situation was complicated: immigration authorities appealed the judge’s ruling, automatically reopening her closed case. That meant her asylum decision no longer applied to her husband, Vadim. When the appeal was later rejected, Veronika filed a motion to reinstate his case — but just days later, Vadim was suddenly threatened with deportation.

She learned from a friend that her husband was being taken “to an unknown location” and immediately contacted their lawyer.

“Vadim couldn’t reach me, so the lawyer called her. I told him right away that Vadim was being taken somewhere, and Vadim himself didn’t know where. Later, through chat messages from other immigrants, I saw that many were being transferred to Alexandria. That’s how the lawyer managed to stop it,” Veronika said.

Vadim told her that when he was brought to the transit detention center in Alexandria, it was already packed. “They were sitting in a small concrete room of some sort. There was nowhere to sit or lie down. They stayed there almost a day. Toward morning someone threw them some dirty rags, maybe because someone was begging. From what I understood, they were also hungry,” Veronika said.

Later, Vadim saw guards shackle people in handcuffs and leg irons and march them out. He and a few others were left behind. Eventually, Vadim was transferred to another detention center.

He was also nearly deported without his belongings. His backpack was empty.

“He wasn’t given anything. They took everything out: his Kazakh bank card, cash, watch, chain, phone. Nothing was returned. They wanted to deport him with an empty backpack. Vadim only learned about it later when they once again began taking in personal items. They opened his bag to show it was accepted, but there was nothing inside,” Veronika said.

Now she is fighting for her husband’s future.

“Everything is done so people break down and ask for deportation. But what if you can’t go back? I’m in this situation now: my husband could be deported, and I’ll be left here. I can’t return there. So what do I do?” she asked.

“People cry and don’t understand why they’re treated this way”: What detainees still hope for

Anna and Sergei see deportation differently. After more than a year in U.S. detention centers, both say they were ready to return to Russia just to put the experience behind them. Anna was deported on July 19 on a regular flight, while Sergei was placed on the charter that departed Aug. 27.

“I came to terms with what was happening six months ago. Otherwise, you couldn’t survive there. I spent a year in detention for nothing. I was waiting for deportation as a kind of bright spot, because by then I was completely disillusioned with this country and the whole system that doesn’t work at all and has no clear purpose,” Anna said.

The couple left Russia in November 2023. They lived in Mexico for about nine months before crossing the border at Hidalgo, Texas, on July 31, 2024. “It wasn’t the most popular crossing point, but people there were processed in one or two days, while in California they were stuck for two or three weeks. At that time, there were still no court hearings in detention, which was the point. And in California, people were scattered across different states, with almost no chance of consolidating their cases.”

Anna spoke bitterly about life in Mexico, saying she never felt safe. “At first we lived in Puerto Vallarta. It was very hot, and when vacation season began, it also became expensive, so we moved to Mexico City. We worked at first, but emotionally it was very hard. You’re without friends or family, you spend a lot, earn little, and are constantly afraid of something,” she recalled.

At the border, Anna and Sergei were lucky. Both were sent to El Valle detention center in Raymondville, Texas. Anna said there were four men’s units and six women’s units at first, later reduced to three. Out of about 100 women, 30 were Russian speakers.

“There were conflicts, but it was much easier to resolve them with Russian-speaking girls than with Spanish speakers. We had our own routine. We played games. Slept a lot. You had your schedule, you lived by it, and it helped you stay afloat. The main thing was not to get into fights or fall for provocations,” Anna said.

The hardest part was adjusting to the conditions and the rules. “I missed my husband terribly, and the pressure [from outside] was irritating. You’re an adult, but they tell you what you can and can’t do. Some officers were okay — you could talk to them, and they’d cut you some slack. Others were just animals. But you get used to it: at first you’re nervous, and then you let it go,” she recalled.

It was even more difficult when detainees were transferred elsewhere. “If you’re vulnerable, the people around you stop being strangers. When girls were taken away to other detention centers, it was hard. They’d wake you up at night and say: ‘You have 10 minutes, pack.’ You live together, support each other, and each departure is painful. I was devastated when they moved my husband,” Anna said.

In early April, 2025 Sergei was sent to the Webb County Detention Facility in Laredo, Texas, where he spent the rest of his time in America. Unlike El Valle, where “red” inmates — those who had served prison sentences in the U.S. — were kept separately, in Laredo immigration detainees were housed with people serving criminal sentences. “It didn’t matter whether you killed someone or crossed the border through CBP One. You were all held together,” Anna said.

By then, both had gone through court hearings. They lost their cases and their appeals. All that was left was to wait for deportation. Since they were in the same state, Anna and Sergei expected to be deported together. But things turned out differently. Anna said she was targeted twice, Sergei three times.

The first attempt came in May.

“They put him on a regular commercial flight. Together with ICE officers, he flew to Dallas, but the flight to New York was canceled due to weather, so he was sent back. A month later, around June 12, they tried again, this time on a charter,” she said.

Sergei was supposed to be on the first charter flight out, but once again it fell through. “There were two people from Texas, including my husband. When they started processing him, they said there were no documents. ICE hadn’t sent anything, so he couldn’t be processed.”

He spent the next five days in a small concrete holding room in Dallas. “There was a toilet, sink, and bench, nothing else. It was very cold, with the AC blasting. They fed him the usual cold rations — a sandwich, chips, cookies, a chocolate bar, water, fruit or applesauce. On the second day, an officer who was kind to him gave him two blankets. That usually doesn’t happen,” Anna said.

In late June, after Sergei’s failed charter attempt, Anna was moved to Tacoma, Washington. “We flew to Washington, but the flight was canceled because of rain, and they sent us back. When I returned, they told me right away I’d be deported on July 19.”

After returning to Tacoma, Anna tried to resolve her husband’s document problem, writing to the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, the Texas office, and the Russian consulate. Then she herself was deported via a commercial flight.

“Why I was on a passenger plane and Sergei on a charter, I don’t know. I was lucky. We flew to China without escorts. In China, we were met, but our documents were with the pilots. They gave them back to us, and you could have easily escaped,” she said.

Weeks later, Sergei was told his passport had been found and he could prepare for deportation. The flight chosen was the Aug. 27 charter. Sergei called Anna from a prison tablet to tell her.

“I started tracking him. He disappeared, then showed up in Alexandria, Louisiana. I saw they don’t have tablets there, but he managed to call my friend in the U.S. using someone else’s phone. He told her he was being sent on the charter. I just kept waiting, hoping he wouldn’t be turned around again like so many others. But I believed it would be okay,” Anna said.

In Moscow, she said, all deportees were lined up.

“My husband said tough-looking men came out right away and told them that since they had been deported this way, they would be subjected to a certain procedure — they’d be taken through offices. That’s what he said word for word. The questioning was simple: ‘What’s your name? How old are you? Did you take secret data out of Russia?’ and so on. Sergei is good with words, so it wasn’t a problem for him,” Anna said.

Rights advocates confirmed her account. “There was none of the filtering, beatings, or other things mentioned in Vladimir Osechkin’s report. Most people were questioned calmly upon arrival. Some stayed, some left the country immediately. Of those I spoke with, 90% said they would try again to seek asylum in other countries,” said human rights advocate Margarita Kuchusheva.

Dmitry Valuev added that there were reports of deportees’ phones being confiscated, raising concerns they may have been bugged.

He also said that the latest deportations left detainees in the U.S. feeling crushed. “They often have breakdowns and panic attacks. We talk to them, and they cry. They don’t understand why they’re being treated this way.”

By his estimate, about 1,000 Russians remain in U.S. detention centers. Two-thirds are still in proceedings, while the rest are likely awaiting deportation.

Staying in detention is the hardest part for asylum seekers.

“Detention centers are real prisons. There’s no internet, no way to use money, no way to hire a lawyer,” explained Valuev. Many, he said, cannot withstand the conditions — constant noise and psychological pressure.

Grigory, who spent five and a half months in a Louisiana detention center, described his state at the time: “Everything was set up to break you. Like in the movie ‘Saw,’ where a person is put in a situation where he kills himself. That’s what it was like here: you’re not prepared for court, you can’t translate all the documents, you can’t find them, you’re sick, you’re depressed. What kind of trial can that be?”

Grigory said many other migrants felt the same. Food was often insufficient, and some even went on hunger strike in despair. “People weren’t eating enough. Once I was in the infirmary, and there were two skeletons sitting there. The guys had looked like that for months — they just refused to eat because they didn’t understand what was happening or how long it would last,” he recalled.

The tense atmosphere was worsened by the unanswered question of “why.” “No one understood why we were being held so long. There was no official paper, no dates, no explanation. Three waves — of Chinese, Pakistanis, Mexicans — came and went, and only we were still being kept in jail, because we had Russian passports,” Grigory said.

Not all detention centers are equally harsh. Some, former detainees said, had lighter conditions. Anna, who was later transferred to Tacoma, Washington, described the contrast. “When I was in Washington, we had a girl from Louisiana, and after listening to her, I realized we had a wonderful detention center. There were even exercise machines and decent food. We lived two to a room, so your job was to get along with your roommate — and then you could feel somewhat normal,” she said.

Sometimes detainees could even find small comforts. “In Tacoma there was more variety than in El Valle. They even had chips. And the funny thing — tuna in water without oil, a small pack. When we were worried we were eating only carbs, we’d get that fish,” Anna said.

But even in better conditions, the sense of hopelessness persisted.

“It’s hard when you’re waiting for something good, but only bad things happen. You see good people who don’t deserve this. And you can’t do anything — neither for your own situation, nor for theirs. You’re powerless, and all you can do is wait for luck to decide everything,” Anna said.

Given the situation, Valuev advises against applying for asylum without legal support. “Immigration authorities know all the tricks. If a person doesn’t know how to convey the idea that he’s a refugee, that he has nowhere else to go, they’ll deport him, because that’s the main task of the authorities now,” he said.

Rights advocate Margarita Kuchusheva went further, urging Russians to avoid the asylum process altogether for now. “I recommend holding off and looking for alternatives,” she said.