Ilia is a 24-year-old pro-democracy activist who recently fled a threatening environment in his native Russia. But after escaping, he was taken into custody and put into jail-like detention by the very country he believed would protect him: the United States.
“I fled Russia because of increasingly harsh laws, because of a government that started persecuting me for my political views and my sexual orientation,” says Ilia. “I believed the United States would help me.”
Like many critics of the Putin regime, Ilia was outraged when Russian authorities arrested pro-democracy opposition leader Alexei Navalny in January 2021. In response, he joined nation-wide protests and began putting up “Free Navalny” fliers around Krosnodor, the city in southern Russia where he was a university student. The government response was brutal, with thousands of people detained and many beaten or tasered by police. In February 2024, Navalny died under suspicious circumstances in a Russian prison camp.
By then, Ilia had already fled the country, after receiving threats from Russian intelligence officials. Being nonbinary, he faced additional risk under Putin’s increasingly repressive laws; his mere existence could mean persecution or imprisonment.
Ilia made his way to Mexico, where he followed the asylum process to the letter. He spent eight months near the border, waiting for a CBP One appointment. In May 2024, he arrived for his appointment, ready to make his case. Instead, he was taken into custody on the spot and put into detention, ending up at a Louisiana facility known for abuse and neglect.
“I applied for asylum because I believed the U.S. would help me,” Ilia says. “But once I was sent to Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana, I faced horrible treatment. The way officers treat detainees is awful. They yell at them, sometimes go as far as to discriminate, make racist remarks, and even subject detainees to sexual abuse.” Ilia has filed multiple complaints over the year he’s spent at Winn, but they go unanswered.
Though detained before President Trump came into office, Ilia has experienced the Trump administration’s hardline immigration stance firsthand. In March 2025, Ilia won his asylum case after an immigration judge considered 900 pages of evidence, including threats from Russian intelligence and letters of support from people who’d witnessed his activism. At this point, Ilia should have been released from detention and allowed to start building his life here. Instead, the Trump administration is refusing to let him out.
Ilia has no criminal history and does not pose a threat to his community. In fact, he won his asylum case, because he was targeted for upholding the very democratic ideals of free speech—upon which this country was founded. The result is prolonged, needless suffering, even for those the system has already deemed worthy of protection.
“The situation [in the detention centers] has gotten worse,” Ilia says, explaining that the facility where he is being kept has been at maximum capacity since Trump took office. “People have started to realize there’s no way out, that they’re just waiting here to be deported, and they’re losing their minds.”
