Concerns Raised As Biden Administration Begins Deporting Russian Asylum Seekers

CONCORD, NH — A report stating the federal government had quietly begun deporting Russian asylum seekers who refused to participate in the invasion of Ukraine back to their homeland set off alarms in New Hampshire and Washington, D.C., this week.

Both current and former federal officials are scrambling to help the asylum seekers — many of them young men who refused to serve in the Russian army, from being returned since they face almost certain death, either on the battlefield or at the hands of the Putin regime. Many asylum seekers filtered through the United States from the Mexican border, according to a report in the Guardian, a British newspaper, Saturday. They have been allowed to stay for many months. But instead of resettling them in communities around the United States, like millions of other migrants from Latin America and other regions during the past two years, these men are now being sent back to Russia.

On Monday and Tuesday, New Hampshire’s four federal delegation members confirmed they were aware of the issue, were monitoring the situation, or trying to access more information.

Laura Epstein, a spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-NH, said their office had contacted the Department of Homeland Security about the issue.

U.S. Rep. Ann McLane Kuster, D-NH, communications director Annie Lentz, said her office also contacted the DHS about the report.

“The congresswoman continues to strongly condemn Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine,” she added. “She stands with the people of Ukraine and those resisting Russian aggression.”

Ty McEachern, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who has consistently been very active on foreign policy issues during her time in the Senate, said one of the deportation cases had been brought to their attention and directed questions to the U.S. State Department.

The state department Monday night referred all questions about the matter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations.

Kristen Morris, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas, D-NH, said their office had heard about the issue and was monitoring the situation.

At post time, ICE had not returned an email seeking comment.

Gordon Humphrey of Chichester, a former Republican who represented New Hampshire for two terms in the U.S. Senate, including time on the foreign relations committee, said he was stunned when he saw the article. Later, through his contacts, including with some asylum seekers, he confirmed the deportations were occurring, which angered him even more.

The United States has had a long history of protecting asylum seekers — especially from war-torn nations in the Middle East, victims of natural disasters in places like Haiti, and repressive regimes in Cuba, Cambodia, and other countries. What made the reversal even more obscene was the deportations would lead to the young men fighting on the front lines of a war the United States and its NATO allies were spending tens of billions of dollars to deflect.

“These guys are being returned, not only to repressive daily attacks on civilian populations — that is why everyone is in an uproar, but to almost certain death,” Humphrey said. “They fled to not be a part of that … and we’re sending these guys back to fight in a war that is inhuman? I’m shocked. I’m disgusted.”

Humphrey said the policy change, which can easily be changed back with the stroke of a pen, was “such a gross injustice … a cruelty … it’s almost a violation of human rights.” He hoped the delegation and others would press the Biden Administration to reverse course quickly and intervene on behalf of the asylum seekers. Humphrey said fixing the problem was not hard; it was an executive decision by ICE and HSI. It was not done by statute or law — it was a decision by the department.

“The policy needs to change and revert back to what it was a week ago,” Humphrey said. “The overarching issue is the principal. As a citizen, I’m disgusted and heartbroken. I’m ashamed.”

Humphrey and his wife, Patricia, have hosted Russians in their home as part of the student exchange program at Bishop Brady High School. The former Senator, known to be part of the Reagan Revolution and a Cold Warrior then, spent several years in the country after leaving politics, helping American companies attempt to do business overseas. That work, he said, was to get a foothold as Russia began its journey “on the road to the rule of law and free markets.”

During his time there, he learned much about the nation and its arts and people, crisscrossing from Eastern Europe to Siberia, on more than a dozen trips. Humphrey remained friends, for many decades, with many of the same people he met in the early 1990s.

The revelation, an education of sorts, made Humphrey realize there was “a distinction between a regime and its people.” It was similar, too, in other countries, like Iran.

“We can’t condemn the people for the sins of the regime,” he said. “Especially a very repressive regime (like Vladimir Putin's Russia, Iran, others) that blocks dissent.”

Humphrey said the Russians who refused to fight in the Ukrainian invasion would be harmed mercilessly when “put back in Putin’s hands.” These deportations, he said, would ensure that.

“You know they are going to be punished,” Humphrey said. “They will be conscripted immediately and sent to the front. They are as good as dead.”

Humphrey also pointed to immigration case law showing asylum may be granted in cases where an applicant feared prosecution if returned after refusing to serve in their home country's military. These men, he said, certainly fit that case.

On Tuesday, Humphrey relayed another message to the Congressional delegation concerning one man who was taken from a detainment center in Goshen, New York, to JFK International Airport to be deported. He said he was escorted to the gate and ordered on the flight, which would connect to another to Moscow. The man refused to board the plane and was returned to the detention facility.

“What will happen to the young man now?,” Humphrey asked. “The larger question is why did Homeland Security reverse its decision of a year ago to suspend deporting Russians who had fled Putin’s conscription? The reversal policy is disastrous.”

Editor's note: I was employed at WKXL, the radio station owned by former U.S. Sen. Gordon Humphrey, between 2004 and 2007, holding the positions of radio journalist, program director, and station manager.

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