Foreign Policy Brief #223 | Yelena Korshunov | December 30, 2025
In October 2025, U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported on its official website that more than 2 million undocumented immigrants had already left the United States — including 1.6 million who voluntarily self-deported and more than 527,000 who were forcefully deported. “This is just the beginning,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin proudly stated.
Among those being deported are a growing number of Russians, including dissidents, i.e. those who dared to speak out against the war in Ukraine. They had fled Russia to save their lives — seeking protection in a nation once regarded as a global stronghold of democracy. They have also found themselves caught in the ICE machinery. This summer, Russians were massively deported from the U.S. on at least two occasions.
The human rights organization Human Rights First reported that ICE Flight Monitor tracked two flights in June and August 2025 involving the transfer of detained Russian nationals from U.S. government custody to Egyptian authorities in Cairo. The organization noted that “recent reports indicate that Russian nationals aboard those two flights were subsequently forcibly returned by Egyptian authorities to Russia, including individuals who had been detained in the United States for over a year after seeking asylum.”
According to The Insider, the exact number of Russians deported was not immediately known. The only approximate figure available to date comes from late August 2025, when the United States deported at least 30 Russians—including political asylum seekers—in a single day.
Additionally, in early December 2025, another group of Russian political refugees was deported back to Russia, a country they had once been fortunate to escape. Upon arriving at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport during the night of December 9, the men were immediately issued draft notices, according to a report by the independent Russian media resource Agenstvo, which cited Dmitry Valuyev, president of the organization Russian America for Democracy in Russia.
Valuyev believes the notices handed to the forcibly returned men most likely concern mandatory military registration or orders to appear at local enlistment offices. However, Agentstvo was unable to establish contact with any of the deported individuals.
News of the flight carrying deportees emerged on December 7. Valuyev noted that the precise number of Russians on the flight remains unknown. The BBC also reported on the deportations, revealing that on December 7 a plane departed from an airport in Mesa, Arizona, transporting Russians and Iranians removed from the U.S. Various media outlets estimate that there have already been three or four such “deportation flights” with Russians in 2025. (ARE THESE THE
Among those deported earlier was Russian activist Leonid Melekhin, who had previously been detained multiple times in Russia for participating in protest actions. In August 2024, he crossed the Mexico–U.S. border and applied for political asylum. He spent several months in U.S. immigration detention, and his asylum request was ultimately denied, resulting in his deportation. In July 2025, upon Melekhin’s deportation to Russia, a court in a Russian city Perm arrested him charged with “justifying terrorism.”
Many other dissidents who have been deported back to Russia face terrifying consequences upon their return. For previously speaking out against the war, they will be thrown into prison and sent to penal colonies from which there is virtually no escape. The same fate awaits many of them as befell Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who recently died (or was killed) in a Russian penal colony.
Engagement Resources:
- DHS Removes More than Half a Million Illegal Aliens From US
- ,https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/10/27/dhs-removes-more-half-million-illegal-aliens-us
- Asylum-Seeking Russians Deported From U.S. at Risk of Persecution and Forced Mobilization, Activists Warn, https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/12/10/asylum-seeking-russians-deported-from-us-at-risk-of-persecution-and-forced-mobilization-activists-warn-a91389 (Independent News from Russia)
- ICE Flights Monitor: September 2025 Report, https://humanrightsfirst.org/library/ice-flight-monitor-september-2025-monthly-report/
- U.S. deports another group of Russians on ICE flight to Egypt, https://theins.ru/en/news/287546