Bay Area asylum-seeker from Russia set for bond hearing after being detained by ICE

By CBS Bay Area

A Bay Area woman originally from Russia will learn whether she will be released on bond this week after being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while traveling with her adult daughter in New York state.

Daria Soboleva says she is counting down the minutes until she can be reunited with her mother, who entered the country legally under a visitor visa in 2021 and then applied for asylum.

“I haven’t seen her for 24 days,” Soboleva, who lives in Sunnyvale, told CBS News Bay Area.

She was separated from her mother, 59-year-old Alevtina, in New York while heading home from a special vacation in late July.

“My mom always wanted to see Niagara Falls,” Soboleva said.” That was her childhood dream, so we were coming back from that trip to San Francisco. We did go through the TSA check we did go through the security. Nothing was alarming, everything was fine. She does have all the proper documents to travel domestically. She has California driver license with real ID.”

But once they got to the gate at Buffalo Niagara International Airport, Soboleva said things changed.

“There were two people that were standing next to her. It wasn’t clear to me whether they were asking her something. And when I came, she was kind of stressed because she was saying, ‘these people came to me and asked me my last name,'” she said. “I asked for their IDs. They didn’t give me their IDs or their names. They didn’t have their uniforms so for me it looked very sketchy as well. I wasn’t sure if this was a proper check.”

After her mother was escorted away by federal agents, she said her lined of communication with her mother went dark.

“I hugged my mom and I told her I will be available on the phone. Which was not true. Like that was the hardest first step was to actually to find my mom because I was not able to connect with her,” Soboleva said.

She learned that her mother had been taken to a jail in Ohio before transferring to the South Louisiana ICE processing center where she is waiting for her bond hearing.

“She was crying, she was telling me like ‘Daria, why? I’m legal. Like why am I here? Like do something please,'” Soboleva said. “I’m not sure, like she was very sad and very scared. And she’s like, ‘I’ve never been in jail. I’ve never had handcuffs,’ all this stuff.”

Soboleva said her mother came from Russia to Sunnyvale in 2021, and had filed for political asylum shortly before her visitor visa expired.

Shortly before that, the war between Russia and Ukraine broke out.

“I’ve heard of people go to prison for 21 years just saying that they’re against the war,” she said.

So after her mother applied for asylum, they had been living in California ever since.

“She stayed with me pretty much all this time,” she said.

Soboleva said her mother also had been taking English classes at Mission College, while also finding a group of friends in the Bay Area community.

“Her life in California was awesome,” she said.

And now, she’s desperate for her mother’s return.

“She’s freezing there, and then she’s old and has a bunch of different diseases. Everything is deteriorating all at once,” Soboleva said of her mother’s condition in the holding cell.

She added that her mother has mobility issues due to a neurological disease, and is concerned for her safety.

“Has a gum disease and that requires proper hygiene. She does not have the tools, so she started spitting blood,” Soboleva said.

Soboleva is also in Louisiana, meeting with her mother’s legal team ahead of the bond hearing.

“I’m really hoping that the judge will release her and I will get her home,” she said.

Bill Hing, a University of San Francisco law and immigration studies professor, said while Soboleva’s mother’s visa status had expired, she has a valid asylum claim.

“It is true that apparently, she overstayed her visitor visa. So, she’s out of status in that sense, but she filed a timely asylum application. In ordinary circumstances somebody who is an asylum applicant who does not have any criminal problems and is not a danger to the community would not be taken into custody,” he told CBS News Bay Area.

But now, her fate hangs with an immigration hearing on Wednesday.

“Usually, an immigration judge asks two questions, in determining whether or not somebody should be released on bond. The two questions are, one, are you likely to abscond? And two, are you a danger to the community?” Hing said. “The Trump administration takes a position that the immigration judges don’t have the authority, they don’t have the final authority to decide whether or not someone should be out on bond.”

He adds that current conditions inside the holding cells continue to be a concern.

“Two weeks ago, there was an independent study ordered by a federal judge on ICE detention centers, medical services, and they failed miserably. And so, it is sad that this woman who relies on medication and is not readily available to her,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s a story I hear all too often in our immigration clinic at the University of San Francisco. We also are representing people in detention in southern California.”

But Soboleva is hoping for better news in court.

“I care a lot about my mom. I’m really trying to get her home as soon as possible,” she said.

Her mother’s bond hearing in Louisiana is set for Wednesday afternoon.

The Department of Homeland Security has not responded to a CBS News Bay Area request for comment on the case.