The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
Trump Forcibly Returns Russian Dissenters who Fled Putin
It's a new low in US refugee/asylum policy; simultaneouly unjust and counterproductive.
The London Times reports that the Trump Administration has been deporting Russian dissenters who fled Vladimir Putin's authoritarian regime, sending them back to Russia, and even apparently helping Russian authorities persecute them:
On August 27, less than a fortnight after President Trump's summit with Putin in Alaska, dozens of Russians were rounded up and deported. Among them was Artyom Vovchenko, 27, a deserter from the war in Ukraine. He is facing a prison sentence of up to decade or could be sent back to the front line.….
Although the deportation of Russians to Russia has accelerated under Trump, the policy began under his predecessor Joe Biden. According to Dmitry Valuev, 46, president of Russian America for Democracy in Russia, an organisation that supports political refugees, deportations under Biden were smaller in number.
He said Russian deportees on those flights avoided returning to Russia by begging for their passports during layovers in China and Morocco and buying flights to alternative destinations.
However, the US now appears to have enlisted the help of the Egyptian government to ensure the migrants are delivered back to Moscow.
The first mass deportation this year took place in June when 47 Russians were put on a flight to Egypt and returned to Russia via Cairo.
On August 27, between 30 and 60 people were sent to Russia on the same route. Some tried to get off the plane in Cairo but were restrained by Egyptian officials and forced to board the onward flight to Moscow, according to Valuev. He believes that US immigration authorities are now working with the Russian FSB [Putin's secret police agency].
I think the June deportation and the August deportation were co-ordinated with the Russian authorities," he said. "The middlemen in the US immigration system and the Russian FSB could not talk to each other directly without approval from higher up. Someone gave that approval."
When the dissidents arrived in Russia, the Russian authorities were given documents relating to their asylum applications in the US. Those dossiers, outlining their political beliefs and criticisms of Putin, could be used to prosecute them back home, campaigners believe.
Khodorkovsky said the treatment of Russian dissidents by the US posed the question of "whether the current administration is prepared to act as a leader of the democratic world".
He said the deportations were particularly troubling given the Russians were "accompanied by documents that can help fabricate criminal cases against them, and all of this at the expense of the American taxpayer".
"This is no longer about democratic leadership — it's about the risk of being seen as an ally of dictators," he said.
As the article notes, abusive treatment of Russian dissenters fleeing Putin occurred under Biden, as well. And I condemned it at the time. But Trump's expansion of the deportations and collaboration with the Russian government is worse.
Beginning soon after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I have argued the US and other Western nations should open their doors to Russians fleeing Putin's increasingly repressive regime. It's the right thing to do for both moral and strategic reasons. Morally, it's wrong to bar people fleeing brutal repression and, in some cases, seeking to avoid being drafted into an unjust war of aggression. Strategically, we benefit from depriving Putin of valuable manpower and from enabling the Russian refugees to contribute to our economy and scientific innovation (Russian immigrants and refugees are disproportionate contributors to the latter). I have also advocated for Ukrainian refugees, whose interest I cannot easily be accused of neglecting.
Of course, under Trump, policy often seems to be driven by a desire to kowtow to Putin and imitate his authoritarian methods. From that standpoint, deporting dissenters back to the regime that oppresses them makes a kind of sense. Just not the kind that any minimally decent person should ever support.
UPDATE: I suppose this is of a piece with Trump's efforts to deport refugees from other oppressive anti-American regimes, such as those who fled Cuba and Venezuela, Iranian Christians, and Afghans who fled the Taliban.(including many who aided the US during the war). But, in one sense, this is even worse, in that US authorities are directly collaborating with the dictatorship in question.
