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By Bransen P. Harper Contributor: Patrick J. Watkins
May 10, 2024 (San Diego) – A young Russian migrant in Jacumba Hot Springs told East County Magazine several weeks ago that he fled his homeland after being persecuted and beaten for opposing Russia’s “unjust war of terror” in Ukraine. But now his hopes of freedom in America have been dashed.
An immigration judge has denied his asylum claim and ordered 19-year-old "Ruslan" deported, according to his aunt and his attorney. HIs real name is being withheld for his protection.
Ruslan was one of several undocumented immigrants in Jacumba, a small town in east San Diego County near the U.S. – Mexico border, who shared stories detailing their long journeys, often filled with danger and uncertainty, as they risked their lives to reach America in order to seek asylum.
Ruslan, an ethnic Uzbeki refugee, said he fled political persecution in Lipetsk, an industrial and manufacturing hub just south of Moscow. He described his fascinating, yet arduous, story about how he managed to escape the intensely oppressive political climate in his home country, seeking hope and refuge in our own “land of the free.” Lipetsk is plagued with significant economic blight much like other cities within the rest of post-Soviet Russia, he stated.
Asked the primary reason behind him fleeing Russia, he described retribution for his pacifist views. “I didn’t agree that Ukrainians should die. People have beaten me on the street. I was attacked by unknown faces.” When he asked police to start an investigation, he adds, “They declined. Then, I went to a prosecutor and he declined too.” Why? He speculates,”I suppose it was that the topic of my discussion was harmful towards the government.”
Ruslan denies breaking any laws in Russia. “I wasn’t even participating in meetings or illegal things. I just think that war is horrible and people shouldn’t die. I’ve been around Russians and Ukrainians and I feel pity for both people.” But the Russian government even attempted to boot him out of his university studies, he said, in an effort to forcibly draft him to fight in a conflict which has killed hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers and Ukrainians, affecting millions worldwide.
Not seeking to fight in what he felt was an unjust war, he made contact with his aunt, who currently resides in New York and would welcome him with open arms. After flights from Moscow to Izmir, Turkey, Izmir to Frankfurt, Germany, then to Mexico City, he finally touched down in Tijuana. He stayed in Mexico for a month in order to receive his VISA status before his phone was subsequently robbed from him at gunpoint, he said. Without a phone, he ultimately decided to continue his mission, taking a bus over to the border town of Mexicali and later attempted to make his way across the small gap in the border wall before finally reaching the United States.
When asked about any encounters or issues with border patrol forces on either side of the border, he replied that the U.S. Border Patrol simply conducted a headcount before letting all of them into the migrant camp. Ruslan then glanced around, before reluctantly revealing, “It was much more dangerous on the other side. There were guys with guns… and they had silencers. So I thought it was all over.” He suspects the armed men are members of the cartel trafficking people across the border.
When asked how he knew about the path to take across the border, Ruslan said he was informed by hotel workers, who knew of clandestine connections with members of a criminal underworld operating the major routes of human trafficking across the border. For a mere price of $250, a car came to his door and drove him to the border. From there, he walked with others from a small bus, past the mountain where he made his way into the migrant camp near Jacumba. Afterwards, Amir was taken in by the U.S. Border Patrol.
A few weeks later, we were able to catch up with Ruslan. We learned that after spending nine days at the nearby facility in San Ysidro south of San Diego, he was flown over to Indiana before taking a long bus ride to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Mississippi. There, despite being well taken care of, he told our reporter that he was under so much duress that he was not able to sleep for three days. He said he forgot to mention important points when reciting his story to the primary ICE officer extracting information from him.
“They asked me, ‘Have you ever been a member of a political party?’ I said ‘no, I wasn’t,’” he told ECM. But he says he didn’t get the chance to add that he had worked as a secretary for the political party, even though he said he was not a member.
“When I tried to say something, they stopped me and told me to only say yes or no and it was a huge part of my story. Which I couldn’t tell them.”
While working for the political party, Ruslan told ECM, “I witnessed bribes, corruption. And when I tried to do something about it I received threats. The last time I was beaten was a result of my conduct. I had witnessed people in the political parties taking bribes.”
When asked which party he worked for where he witnessed corruption, Ruslan said the party is “Новые люди,” which means “New People,” which is a center-right party in Russia sympathetic towards Vladimir Putin.
After his interrogation by the ICE officer, Ruslan was provided the option to plead his case for asylum before a federal judge in Mississippi. But the judge later ruled that Ruslan's claim of fleeing political persecution and forced conscription to fight in a war he opposed was not a valid enough reason to be granted political asylum in the United States. His aunt in New York told ECM that Musin now faces deportation.
“I feel so devastated,” she lamented. “I fear for his life over there. My hope is that he doesn’t be sent back to Russia to be imprisoned because he fled, or be sent to fight in the war.”
Ruslan’s attorney, Shahzada F. Ashraf, told ECM that Ruslan will likely be deported to Russia soon. The lawyer added, “It is a tragedy that the judge was not persuaded by his case. He was one of my favorite clients I’ve ever worked with.”
Now, amid chaotic and at times unfathomable policies for handling the influx of people at the border, one more Russian teen may soon be forced to fight for Putin’s war machine in Ukraine or face detainment within the murky labyrinth of Russia’s prison system, where any sliver of hope for freedom from tyranny and oppression is trampled by the government, unable to shine through the darkness.
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