21,763 Russians seeking asylum entered the United States through the border with Mexico in the period from October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2022. This is approximately 46 times more than in the same period a year earlier. This was reported by The New York Times, citing data from the US Customs and Border Protection Service.
A year earlier, from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021, only 467 Russian citizens crossed the US border with Mexico. However, in October 2022 alone, the flow of Russians already amounted to 3,879 people.
The publication emphasizes that the number of Russians crossing the southern border of the United States has increased in recent months, due to the persecution in Russia of those who evade mobilization. The publication calls them «dissidents». Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the number of Russians coming to the United States to seek asylum has reached its highest level in history.
Many of those who enter the U.S. from Mexico are detained, tested, and then released and allowed to plead their case in court later. However, there are also those who are kept in immigration centers for several months. There they face difficulties finding lawyers and gathering evidence for their asylum cases. The publication writes that lawyers working with migrants believe that Russian citizens seeking asylum have been detained more often in recent months, sometimes with bail exceeding $30,000. At the same time, in the United States, an amount of $30,000 during the consideration of an asylum case is considered very large; immigrants from Latin American countries are usually assigned a lower bail.
The Times story focuses on the story of Maria Shemyatina and Boris Shevchuk, a husband-and-wife pair of young doctors who were arrested while crossing the border from Mexico in April and spent six months in detention in two separate immigration detention centers in Louisiana. When the wife fell ill, lost consciousness and began to have convulsions, only then was she hospitalized. During her imprisonment, she lost 14 kilograms. They were initially set bail at $15,000 each — an amount they could not raise. On Oct. 28, ICE agreed to lower bail to $10,000 each. They were eventually helped by friends who organized a fundraiser.
ICE, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, does not release statistics on the nationalities of migrants held in detention camps. The New York Times in its publication relies on investigative journalism and surveys of American immigration lawyers.