The August sun was already warming Westlake Village when Anton Perevalov dressed in athletic shorts and decided to take an early morning stroll with his miniature pinscher, Ben, while his wife slept.
As he turned right onto Hillcrest Drive — a route he’d taken so many mornings before — an unmarked car stopped in front of him and a man he’d never met emerged and peppered him with questions: “Are you Anton Perevalov?” “Are you a citizen of Russia?”
When Perevalov, 43, answered in the affirmative, two other men exited the car and approached him. One took his phone and the other slapped handcuffs on him, ushering him and Ben into the car. As they drove toward his home, they instructed Perevalov to call his wife so she could come out and get the dog.
Perevalov pleaded with the men, saying that there had to be a mistake. He had documents proving he was legal to live and work in the United States. It didn’t matter, one of the men told him.
“You overstayed your visa,” he said. “You are under arrest and coming with us.”
Tatiana Zaiko sprinted out of the house in her pajamas and slippers, telling her 17-year-old son that his dad had been arrested and to lock the door. She’d be right back, she recalled telling him.
She wasn’t. Friends would later find the boy huddled under his parents’ bed, fearful that immigration agents may return for him too.
“I never imagined that something like this could happen in this country,” Zaiko, 43, said.
For years, Russian nationals and others seeking asylum in the United States were allowed to live and work here while their cases were being decided. That began to change in 2024 under the Biden administration and has been completely upended in the wake of President Trump’s efforts to boost deportation numbers, experts say.
Under Trump, those with a pending asylum claim aren’t exempt from being detained and deported. In fact, targeting asylum seekers in the United States makes it easier for immigration agents to carry out Trump’s stated plans of deporting at least 1 million people annually because they’re known to the government and easier to find, said Dara Lind, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council.
“People who have done everything right are arguably easier for this administration to go after and more of a target than people who are actively trying to evade the law,” Lind said.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin introduced war censorship laws to make criticism of the war an offense punishable by significant jail time. Those who have been critical of the war and sought asylum in the United States are at risk of having property seized, being fined and spending significant time in prison if they were to return to Russia.
It was for this reason that Perevalov and Zaiko sought protection in the United States.
The couple applied for asylum in 2023 during what was initially a family vacation to New York City over Christmas. The trip was a longtime dream of their son’s, who grew up watching the movie “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York”, and wanted to spend the season taking in the sights of the Big Apple just like Kevin McCallister, the film’s lead character. Trump makes a brief cameo in the movie as himself.
But during the trip, the family received word from back home that the Russian police were looking to interrogate Perevalov about his opposition to the war in Ukraine. Perevalov hadn’t been shy about sharing his disapproval and had donated funds in support of Ukraine.
In schools, Perevalov said, they had introduced lessons of “military-patriotic education,” teaching children that Western countries wanted to take over Russia. At one point, their son’s teacher brought an AK-47 rifle to class and forced students to disassemble and reassemble it. The couple voiced their disapproval.
More than a week after arriving, the family decided returning to Russia would be too dangerous, so they contacted an attorney to help them apply for political asylum in the U.S. They filled out the application, Form I-589, and three weeks later received confirmation that their form had been accepted and they were scheduled for fingerprinting.
The document they received stated they were authorized to remain in the United States while their application was pending. They got work permits, settled in the San Fernando Valley and found jobs — Perevalov at a detailing studio and Zaiko as a house manager. They paid taxes and settled into the rhythm of life in America.
When immigration raids began ramping up across Southern California over the summer, the couple figured they had nothing to worry about since the Trump administration had emphasized it sought to deport dangerous criminals.
“We don’t understand,” Zaiko said. “We did everything right. We’re not criminals. We have documents. I thought it was a mistake, but it’s not a mistake.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not answer questions from The Times about the status of the couple’s immigration case.
“Perevalov and Zaiko will receive full due process and all their claims will be heard by an immigration judge,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an email. “For the record: a pending asylum claim does NOT protect illegal aliens from arrest or detention.”
The couple’s arrest — along with examples of others in similar circumstances being detained by federal officials — has spread fear through the Russian immigrant community in Southern California.
A Russian national living in Southern California who declined to provide his name for fear he could be targeted for deportation said he rarely goes out anymore. When he does leave his house, he scrutinizes every car that passes, wondering if it’s agents looking to detain him and his family.
His child has spent most of her life in the United States and doesn’t know what it was like in their home country. A return to Russia for him would probably mean death, he said.
“America was like a lighthouse of liberty for us,” the man said. “But it doesn’t feel that way right now.”
Despite the federal government’s assertion that it is targeting dangerous criminals, many of the Russian asylum seekers who have been placed in detention have no criminal records. Some have been victims of crimes, said Dmitry Valuev, president of the nonprofit group Russian America for Democracy in Russia.
Russian asylum applications to the United States rose sharply in the years since the country invaded Ukraine, as many Russians seek to leave for fear of political persecution or being conscripted into the military. This contributed to a growing backlog in immigration courts.
As of 2024 — the most recent data available — more than 14,600 asylum cases from Russia were pending in California, up from 1,771 in 2021, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which publishes immigration data.
In 2024, asylum applicants began landing in long-term detention while their cases were pending, a change that Valuev attributes to concerns about spies from post-Soviet countries infiltrating the United States and creating a national security risk.
After Trump’s inauguration, he declared a state of emergency at the southern border, where many asylum seekers including Russians showed up, allowing the federal government to deny them asylum and deport them back to their country of origin.
“Now they use any excuse, any reason to detain an individual whose immigration situation is pending,” Valuev said.
In June and August, two flights out of the United States involved the transfer of detained Russian nationals to Egyptian government custody. Those individuals were forcibly returned to Russia, including people who had been detained in the United States for more than a year after seeking asylum, according to Human Rights First, which tracks immigration flights out of the United States.
When they arrived at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in downtown Los Angeles, Perevalov and Zaiko were again fingerprinted, had their belongings confiscated and were taken to roughly 1,000-square-foot holding cells separated by gender. On the men’s side, about 50 men were packed into the windowless cell. It felt like the air conditioning was always on and the concrete floor detainees slept on was freezing, the couple said.
They were given foil emergency blankets, which did little to warm them. Zaiko was given a thin mat to sleep on, a luxury not afforded to the men. The lights never went off. They dimmed only slightly at midnight, which was the only way to tell a new day had begun.
Meals were given at random times, sometimes at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. When Perevalov asked for a toothbrush or other basic hygiene items, an officer told him it wasn’t “a hotel.” Zaiko, who takes medicine daily, had to have friends bring her pills from her home to the facility.
When the men flushed the toilet, the waste would back up into the women’s plumbing, creating a stench that Zaiko said was “unbearable.”
They were both questioned and given deportation documents, which they didn’t fully understand and refused to sign. They said their requests for translators were ignored.
After five days, they were shackled and transferred to separate detention centers — Zaiko to Adelanto and Perevalov to a center in San Diego — where they spent nearly a month before their attorney could get them released on bond.
Perevalov and Zaiko shared their story during a Los Angeles City Council meeting last month, a decision they made so that people could better understand the risks even asylum seekers face as immigration sweeps continue in Southern California, they said.
Standing at the lectern, Zaiko broke down in tears describing being handcuffed by immigration officers, then retreated into her husband’s arms.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield called the immigration raids a “crisis” for America during the meeting.
“There are many Russian couples who are here who would potentially be killed if they were sent back to Russia and they’re in this situation,” he said. “This administration is harming our communities and seem to be throwing our constitutional rights out of the window. This is America. This is not Russia.”
As of Friday, Perevalov and Zaiko were still waiting to hear what’s next for them in the immigration process.
In the meantime, they’re focusing on their son, who is still struggling with what happened even after his parents returned home. Zaiko will never forget the first thing he said to her when she arrived from detention — a simple plea that said so much.
“Please don’t leave me alone again.”
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