ICE tried to send one immigrant to a country he never lived in. Then he lawyered up.
By Ximena Bustillo
NPR
October 19, 2025 7:00 AM ET

A man came to the United States at age 4 as a refuge from the Soviet
Union. At some point as a child, he obtained a green card (immigration
visa) which entitles a holder to work and have most of the benefits of
being an American except voting.

When he was a darling teenage boy, he committed a carjacking and pleaded guilty. Carjacking is a violent felony and he deserved to be deported,
but he never was. Why? The Soviet Union had collapsed. He was born in
what became Ukraine. (I have no idea if he's a Russian or Ukrainian
ethnic based on his name.) Neither country could locate a record of his
birth and wouldn't say he was a national, so he never got deported.

He's kept out of trouble, became productive, and did his immigration
check ins without fail. He married and told his wife about his shady
past.

Trump administration picked him up in August for deportation at his
routine immigration check in, and since then, his wife has spent full
time fighting his deportation. She found a team of lawyers.

Interestingly, they got the umderlying conviction vacated due to police
and courts failing to follow procedure. He should have been advised that pleading guilty and not facing a full trial would immediately put his immigration status in peril.

I also wonder if, when he was arrested, the consulate was informed.
Police fail to make those routine notifications even though the United
States is a party to treaties requiring such notification so that U.S. consulates are notified when American travellers abroad are arrested.

Which embassy? He's a stateless person.

He speaks neither Russian nor Ukrainian, and if deported to Ukraine,
he'd be drafted since middle aged men are fighting in the war.

Had he been deported initially, he'd have deserved it, but since he
turned his life around, I'm sympathetic.

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In article <10d4ebs$2v474$1@dont-email.me>,
ahk@chinet.com says...

Had he been deported initially, he'd have deserved it, but since he
turned his life around, I'm sympathetic.

According to the dates, he was already an adult during
two amnesties. It sounds like he took advantage of
neither. His carjacking conviction may have blocked that,
but I'm not sure that's wrong.

This is an unusual case. Letting a court decide is
probably the right thing.


Melissa


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