Support Asylum Seekers

ICE kidnapped my friend’s husband just after their routine asylum hearing. Please help us raise funds for their legal fees.

My name is Julie, I teach ESL in New York and I’m raising money for my friend who’s a student at my school. With her permission, I’m asking the community to help cover the costs of their extensive legal fees as they fight to free her husband and win their asylum case.

My friend and her husband came to the U.S. in 2023, worried his anti-Putin politics and her Ukranian nationality would lead to persecution in Russia. They applied for asylum under Biden.

At a routine asylum hearing this summer, DHS attempted to dismiss their case, a common tactic federal agents are using under Trump to justify grabbing people outside hearings and detaining them.

However the immigration judge denied this attempt. By court order, my friend and her husband were slated to come back to court in 2026, and in the meantime keep living their life in New York without restriction.

Instead they were seized without explanation by ICE agents , their documents ignored, and detained on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza. My friend was eventually released for a medical procedure, but her husband has been in detention for months. He’s been arbitrarily moved multiple times to different locations, eventually landing in a Texas detention center. (See this Daily News article for more info .)

My friend’s continued freedom is in doubt. She’s fighting for their asylum to be granted, and her husband released. The first step is for her husband to be transported back to New York–still in detention, but closer to her and the support of the community and his advocates.

My friend and her husband worry about their safety if deported back to Russia. No one deserves to be persecuted for their identity or politics. It’s inhumane and outrageous that they’re being treated this way.

Please share, re-share, and donate if able to show your solidarity with them against this injustice.

All funds raised in this campaign will be used exclusively for legal costs.