Asylum not found: Why Russians are being deported from the United States

Previously, temporary detention centers mostly held asylum seekers and other migrants taken into custody at the U.S.-Mexico border. Now, however, they are now increasingly holding people who have already applied for asylum and were awaiting a decision while living and working in the U.S. In the past, arrests of migrants inside the country were generally linked to cases involving violent crimes. Now only 7% of those detained had previously been convicted of such offenses.

Under Trump, the justifications for detaining asylum applicants include traffic checks, especially of long-haul truck drivers (among whom there are many migrants, including Russians and others from former Soviet countries). In many large cities, migration authorities carry out mass raids directly on the streets, with agents in masks and plain clothes officers taking people away in unmarked vehicles. Because law enforcement officers often focus only on race, they sometimes detain U.S. citizens as well — since the beginning of 2025, at least 170 such incidents have been recorded.

Human rights advocates are also raising the alarm over the growing practice of arrests inside courthouse buildings, where migrants come for scheduled hearings regarding their asylum cases. However, such detentions have gradually ceased due to public outcry.

“Civil society worked well here. People mobilized, large group chats were formed, and they didn’t allow people to be arrested quietly,” Lia Jamilova says. “They explained migrants’ rights, recommended attorneys, and urged them not to sign papers with ICE, because those arrests were illegal. After that, ICE stopped arrests in courts. They realized it was too public and too awkward.”

According to Jamilova , in conversations with her and other immigration lawyers, ICE officers sometimes admit that the reason for detaining their clients is the need to meet performance targets imposed from above:

“They have quotas, but no one to arrest. These officers are climbing the walls, crying crocodile tears in private conversations about being forced to do this. They arrest parents at daycare centers, they arrest people when they come to check in. Because there’s nowhere to find ‘bad’ migrants, they take anyone.”

As early as February, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller was demanding that at least 1,000 migrants be detained every day, and in May the quota was raised to 3,000 people. As a result, people who were previously left alone are increasingly being picked up. Yulia Sokolovskaya gives one such example: “We had a client detained whose husband is currently serving in the U.S. Army and is being sent to combat zones. We managed to get her released, although the chances were 0.5%. ICE officers now have no taboos at all — even military service is no longer an argument, although it had always been considered sacred. As they told us, ‘nothing personal, guys — just numbers.’”

Although ICE has so far failed to meet the target (an average of about 800 people are detained daily), the overall number of arrests has already sharply increased. In an effort to boost staffing levels, the agency’s leadership has lowered recruitment standards and shortened training periods for new agents. To assist with arrests, personnel from the Department of Homeland Security, the Border Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and even agents from the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Internal Revenue Service are also being deployed.

Against the backdrop of mass arrests of migrants, conditions in temporary detention centers have deteriorated sharply. Since the beginning of the year, the number of detainees has increased by 70%, now totaling more than 66,000 people. Human rights advocates note that migrants are often held in cramped and unsanitary conditions, with many forced to sleep on the floor and deprived of access to doctors and lawyers. Some detainees are placed in solitary confinement for several days or even weeks, in violation of ICE’s own rules.

For example, at the recently opened Fort Bliss center in Texas, 45 migrants were able, through an attorney, to submit a complaint alleging beatings and intimidation by staff. Guards reportedly choked and beat detainees, squeezed their genitals, and threatened them with deportation to Africa or imprisonment in El Salvador.