Trump's Trials - He was detained by ICE. Here's what happened when he lawyered up

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

ICE tried to send one immigrant to a country he never lived; then he lawyered up. Detainees like him who can afford to pay for more due process show the pitfalls of a mass deportation approach.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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And every day, the NPR Politics podcast is here to make sense of it all. We're your daily companion, giving you the updates and news you need to stay informed. Listen to the NPR Politics podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Scott Simon. The Trump administration wants to deport a million people a year and is placing tens of thousands in immigration detention. As part of the strategy, immigration officers are arresting and detaining those whom the government had previously tried and failed to deport. and Pierre's immigration policy reporter, Jimenez-Bustillo, has been following the case of one such detainee. Samantha Sorosov met her husband, Roman, in 2017, while jet skiing that summer.

When they started to date... He told me about his past and his convictions, and of course they had a lot of questions. When he was a teenager, Serovsev pleaded guilty to carjacking charges. He spent a few years in prison and the green card he had received after coming to the U.S. as a young refugee from the former Soviet Union was revoked. When he was released in 2014, he was handed to immigration and customs enforcement. He told me around that time that he had spent time in ICE attention. He was a stateless person and that he couldn't be deported anywhere but checks in every year.

The Sorovsav's lives followed the path of thousands of immigrants in the U.S. who are considered stateless. They got married, had kids, and launched a small commercial painting business in Texas. But after President Trump won the election, and there were reports of immigrants being detained, at their check-ins, the couple started to worry. There was also fears about detention. Where would he be? How would I be able to contact him? Could I contact him?

There were so many unknowns that I could barely function. I was just shaking, fearful, crying, trying to keep it together for my kids' sake so that they wouldn't know what was going on. It was really hard. The morning of the appointment, they arrived early. He doesn't even check in with an officer anymore. He was downgraded to it. kiosk because of his situation. It was just basically verifying your information and then walking

out. But after about 10 minutes had passed, I knew something else was going on. Roman Sorovsev was detained that day at the Dallas Icefield office and eventually transferred to the Blue Bonnet Detention Center in North Texas. His wife, Samantha, lawyered up. And since he was detained, lawyers have successfully vacated the carjacking conviction, setting Roman on a path to get his green card back. But they say, ISIS is still trying to deport him to Ukraine, a country that has not provided any travel documents to return him and is an active war with Russia. Here's Eric Lee, a partner at one of the law firms handling the case. He's going to get his green card back in a matter of time, which only makes it all the more callous and absurd that the administration continues

to try and remove him to a country to which removal is effectively going to be a death sentence. Court filings reviewed by NPR showed that ICE tried to provide documentation to Roman, but in Ukrainian, a language he does not speak. Chris Goodshall-Bennett, a constitutional and civil rights attorney on the case, said to Rovsev is not the only one detained after ICE had let them go. There are lots of people in this situation, and there have been several habeas cases filed over the summer on very similar facts, a redetention. Habeas is the legal avenue for people to claim that their detention is unlawful. In court filings, ICE argues that he can be detained because they are trying to get the travel documents for Ukraine. In many ways, Swardov's case is unique. Not everyone has this level of legal representation, for example.

But in other ways, his case highlights what his wife said every immigrant should have, the due process to argue that they should stay. Here is Samantha. People need to understand that there's a human element involved with immigration, that every story is unique, every case deserves to be heard in front of a judge. This is not a black and white situation. In the more than two months that Serovsev has been in detention, he's missed his wedding anniversary,

his wife and daughter's birthdays, and his mother's recent health issues. ICE did not respond to NPR's request for comment on Serov's detention, and he remains there while he navigates this complicated legal landscape. Hemanabustillo, NPR News, Washington. Before we wrap up, a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump and Minnesota. on the NPR Politics Podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down

the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR. Crime looks different than it used to. A loophole in a crypto wallet could yield a billion dollars.

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