Two Vancouver residents who came to the United States from Russia about two years ago seeking legal asylum were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last week.
Aleksandr Kungurtsev, 34, and Nikita Svinchukov, 24, now sit in the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. Their arrests leave two families without breadwinners and a boy undergoing intensive treatment for brain cancer without his father.
Agents took Kungurtsev at 8:34 a.m. Dec. 27. His wife, Viktoriia, said four unmarked vehicles pulled up to their home in Vancouver’s Marrion neighborhood. Agents called Kungurtsev outside and asked him to verify information on his phone regarding his asylum application. He walked out barefoot.
The agents promised that everything was fine and that he would be released in two hours after having an ankle monitor placed on him, Viktoriia Kungurtsev said in Russian through Google Translate and a phone interpreter. She said agents showed no warrant.
“When he took the phone and began looking at it, they grabbed him,” she said. “He was not even wearing shoes.”
Agents detained Svinchukov around 10 a.m. Dec. 27, according to James “Jimmy” Mathis II, a 72-year-old Vietnam veteran. Svinchukov, who is Aleksandr Kungurtsev’s nephew, works as a caregiver for Mathis.
Mathis said a man in a dark-blue uniform knocked on his door on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs campus in Vancouver. Mathis said the man identified himself as VA campus police. The man said he was there with a warrant with ICE and “just needed something signed,” Mathis said.
He said ICE was pinging Svinchukov’s ankle monitor during the interaction.
Svinchukov was monitored via SmartLINK, a smartphone app and monitoring system used by ICE’s Alternatives to Detention program. The system employs GPS-equipped ankle monitors for continuous location tracking and requires users to submit facial recognition check-ins on the app. Intended to ensure court appearances, these monitoring methods face criticism for the intense digital surveillance they impose on individuals awaiting legal proceedings.
After Svinchukov traveled to Texas for work, ICE placed an ankle monitor on him and restricted his travel to within the Pacific Northwest. The family says they don’t know why he was given the ankle monitor or why his travel was restricted.
When agents came to his home, Mathis let them in. Two other men who entered behind the first were wearing ICE flak jackets. The man in the blue uniform wore no ICE insignia, Mathis said.
Mathis said he felt deceived and began protesting and shouting. He said the agents told him, “Go to sleep, old man.”
A video of the incident shows that Svinchukov demanded a warrant, but agents did not present one. When they moved to restrain Svinchukov, he panicked and tried to run, he told The Columbian in a video call Tuesday.
Mathis told The Columbian he suspects the man in dark blue was an ICE officer posing as VA police. He said he spoke to VA campus police and was told the description he gave didn’t match anyone who worked on the campus.
Other people in Vancouver have reported seeing ICE dressed in a way that makes them appear as if they work for other law enforcement agencies.
Sofiia, Svinchukov’s wife, said officers tackled him and arrested him while the incident was caught on a video call with her.
“These are good people,” Mathis said. “They haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t want to live in a country like that.”
Shaneka Barfield, a spokesperson for the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, told The Columbian that VA police were not involved in this arrest and did not assist ICE.
The families said they tried to file a police report but local authorities refused to accept a report, stating they did not want to get involved with a federal agency.
The 2019 Keep Washington Working Act prohibits local authorities from working with federal immigration enforcement, punishable with a criminal violation and potential stripping of certification.
Potential death sentence
On Tuesday, the families of the men spoke with The Columbian with the help of a translation app and a phone interpreter. Candy canes and ornaments hung in their now-quiet home off Mill Plain Boulevard. A Christmas tree stood in the corner. The dining table held a spread of holiday sweets, resting beneath a wood carving of a church that reads, “Praise him.”
But the holiday atmosphere was broken by the sound of three women speaking with distress to one another in Russian, all wearing masks to mitigate the spread of germs to an immunocompromised teenager nearby. One comforted a whining amber Labradoodle. From the second floor, the mechanical whir of medical equipment drifted down the halls.
Aleksandr Kungurtsev is the sole provider for his wife and 16-year-old son, Egor. The boy recently underwent a 12-hour-long emergency brain surgery and is receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatment. He requires assistance with eating via a feeding tube and going to the bathroom. The family says he can no longer play soccer.
“Our child is physically unable to care for himself and urgently needs his father’s constant presence for both physical care and psychological support,” Viktoriia Kungurtsev said.
She said that following his father’s detention, Egor’s condition deteriorated sharply, resulting in severe vomiting and a hospital visit. Viktoriia Kungurtsev’s fear is that if she is also detained, Egor will have no caretaker and no funding for therapy and will enter the foster system.
The family exhausted their savings during two months of medical rehabilitation in Seattle. They attempted to retain an attorney, paying her $13,500, but said the attorney declared bankruptcy and never returned the funds.
“Right now, we have nothing,” Viktoriia Kungurtsev wrote in an appeal for aid. “No money for rent, food, transportation to the hospital or basic needs.”
The family has posted a GoFundMe to raise money for Egor’s medical expenses.
Beyond the immediate medical crisis, the family fears deportation could be a death sentence for Nikita Svinchukov.
Nikita Svinchukov and Aleksandr Kungurtsev entered the United States seeking asylum using the CBP One mobile app. They were allowed into the country three months after applying for asylum. Nikita Svinchukov has strong ties to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, a Russian organization established by late opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Russian authorities have labeled the group a “terrorist organization,” resulting in criminal cases against associates. Navalny died in an Arctic prison in February 2024, a death his widow and international leaders blame on the Kremlin.
“We really did come here seeking protection. We believed so much in the United States and its people,” Sofiia Svinchukov said. “We felt safe here and were confident my husband would be protected. He was detained in Russia because of politics, and now he’s being detained here because of politics.”
Nikita Svinchukov believes he will face execution if returned to Russia because of his ties to the Anti- Corruption Foundation.
In the video call with The Columbian, he said that when he and the others were transferred to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, agents told them they “are here because the policy in the country has changed” and instructed them to prepare for deportation.
“We have been asking what the new policy change is, but no one here seems to know what the policy is,” Nikita Svinchukov said.
He said the agents acknowledged that he and his uncle lack criminal history but said it didn’t matter anymore, and they would be placed in a low-risk portion of the detention center.
Nikita Svinchukov said he doesn’t feel safe and described the center as overcrowded, exceeding its 1,575-person capacity.
“There is clearly chaos going on here now with the courts, and it’s all in a deplorable state,” Nikita Svinchukov said. “There are at least 44 people sleeping on the floors of the corridor outside the cells, right now.”
He described the food as just barely edible and hygiene supplies as scarce. A 15-minute video call costs $53, draining what little money the families have left.
ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Columbian. The ICE media line is disconnected.
“Since Jan. 20, DHS has arrested more than 595,000 illegal aliens,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote in a Dec. 10 post on the DHS website. “Illegal aliens are hearing our message to leave now. They know if they don’t, we will find them, we will arrest them, and they will never return.”
The men’s families insist they are law-abiding and have complied with any regulations given to them.
“We wouldn’t have reached out to (The Columbian) if we had a criminal record or had done anything illegal,” Sofiia Svinchukov said. “That would have been foolish.”
The family doesn’t know why the women in the family weren’t taken, but reports from across the country show disproportionately more men than women are detained by ICE. On average, 90 percent of arrests by ICE are of men. Between 2012 and 2013, between 93 percent and 94 percent of arrests were men; 6 percent to 7 percent were women.
Sofiia Svinchukov said what’s happening in the United States right now makes her feel like she is back in Russia.
A search of Washington and Oregon court records for Nikita Svinchukov and Aleksandr Kungurtsev returned no convictions or arrests.
“We don’t even have any fines,” Sofiia Svinchukov said.
Mathis told The Columbian he has become close with Nikita Svinchukov’s family since he was hired on as Mathis’ caretaker and even spent Christmas with them. He said the family has been nothing but kind to him.
He said that while watching the agents take his caregiver away, he felt his country shift beneath his feet.
“What did they do to the Constitution? Put it in a box and bury it?” Mathis said. “I swore an oath not to protect the president, but to protect the Constitution. The law of the land. What happened to that? What happened to us?”
Tyler Brown: tyler.brown@ columbian.com; 360-735-4613
“We really did come here seeking protection. We believed so much in the United States and its people. We felt safe here and were confident my husband would be protected. He was detained in Russia because of politics, and now he’s being detained here because of politics.” Sofiia Svinchukov Wife of detained man