One ICE detainee’s story highlights gaps in due process : NPR

Samantha Surovtseva met her husband Roman Surovtsevin 2017 while riding a jet ski.

When they started dating, Surovtsev spoke honestly about his past. He told her that he came from the former Soviet Union as a refugee at the age of four. And that when he was a teenager, his green card was revoked after he pleaded guilty to carjacking and burglary in California.

He explained that after being released from prison in 2014, he spent time in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement while they tried (and failed) to deport him to Ukraine and Russia.

Both countries, according to legal documents reviewed by NPR, were unable to provide or confirm Surovtsev's citizenship because he left before the collapse of the Soviet Union. They could not issue him the travel documents necessary for deportation.

Since then, Roman Surovtsev has been checked by ICE every year.

In the meantime, the life of the Surovtsevs followed the path of thousands of immigrants to the United States, who considered a stateless person. They got married, had children and started small commercial painting business in Texas.

Then, one day in early August, what was supposed to be a 10-minute errand at an ICE Dallas field office kiosk for one of those routine checks turned into a 30-minute wait in the parking lot, “praying he wouldn't get detained,” his wife told NPR.

“There were tears, just not knowing what was on the other side of this meeting,” recalls Samantha Surovtseva. Then she got a call: “I panicked. I panicked because it said, “This is a call from a detainee.”

Roman Surovtsev joined the trend of others who are detained during regular checks with ICE to meet the administration's goal of deporting one million people annually.

“The Human Element”

What makes his case different is that his wife has assembled a team of lawyers on his behalf. Unlike hundreds of other people the Trump administration has promised to deport as part of its mass deportation goal, Surovtsev has a chance to stand before a judge.

“People need to understand that there is a human element to immigration, that every story is unique,” ​​his wife said. “Every case deserves to be heard by a judge. It's not a black and white situation.”

According to the Surovtsevs' lawyers and court records, this is the second time ICE has tried to deport Roman to Ukraine, which does not have documents confirming his citizenship and could involve him in an armed conflict. In court papers, his lawyers argue that his re-detention is unconstitutional because no changes have been made to facilitate his deportation to his birthplace and that “there is no significant likelihood that Roman will be removed in the reasonably foreseeable future.”

The absurdity of his situation was highlighted at the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Texas. Prison in North Texas this summer it exceeded its populationAlso hosted Venezuelan migrants.

Surovtsev was given deportation papers in Ukrainian, according to a court filing by Zakery Hagerty, the deportation officer handling Surovtsev. Surovtsev, who is fluent in English, does not speak or read Ukrainian.

In court filings, the Justice Department, which is prosecuting the cases on behalf of the government, said the repeated detentions were legal because the agency had once again asked Ukraine for new travel documents.

Hagerty said in a statement that he believes Surovtsev could be deported to at least a third country, if not Ukraine.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment on its specific case.

Meanwhile, his legal team successfully cleared him of criminal liability for car theft, arguing that he was not informed of the consequences for his immigration status when he initially pleaded guilty as a teenager.

“This is not a difficult question. This is not a discretionary issue,” said Eric Lee, a partner at the law firm Lee and Godshall-Bennett, one of the firms handling the case. “He expects to get his green card back in a matter of time, which makes it even more heartless and absurd that the administration continues to try to deport him to a country from which deportation would effectively be a death sentence.”

Navigating Due Process

During Surovtsev's more than two months in custody, he missed his wedding anniversary, the birthdays of his wife and daughter, and his mother's recent health problems. His wife Samantha had to give up two months of work at their painting business, and two of their employees were left without work.

Every day, she told NPR, she turns down about five job applicants, letting clients know there's a family emergency. Instead, she worked with several attorneys across the country to have her husband's conviction overturned, his green card restored, and his release from custody.

Immigration advocates say the Trump administration's fast-track approach to increasing arrests and expulsions is reducing the limited due process immigrants receive. This due process, they say, is intended in part to minimize the chance of mistakes and prevent someone from being fired when they have a strong claim to stay.

Legal experts say the Trump administration has taken steps to undermine due process. Earlier this year, the president said not all the people he wants to remove could stand trial.

Immigration officers were ordered to make arrests in court, although judges asked immigrants to return to their cases. And the Department of Homeland Security has ordered the detention of immigrants during the proceedings, with such detention mandatory for those who entered the country without legal status.

“However, there are a lot of people in this situation. There have been several habeas cases brought over the summer on very similar facts regarding re-arrest,” said Chris Godshall-Bennett, a constitutional and civil rights attorney and another of Surovtsev's attorneys, citing legal opportunity for people to claim that their detention is unlawful.

The process can be slow, and most people detained as immigrants in immigration court do not have legal representation to argue the details of their cases. Lee, another lawyer in Surovtsev's case, said the trial shows the government is again trying to do what it cannot: deport Surovtsev to Ukraine.

“The danger here is not simply that people will be sent somewhere by mistake. The danger is that the government is going to do this deliberately and ignore these protections,” Lee said. “By ignoring these protections for a certain group of people, they have opened the door for them to be ignored. Dot”.