Filipp and Danil fled Russia together, hand in hand. They escaped the same police who raided queer gatherings, the same mobs who outed and hunted gay men for sport. They thought America would mean safety — the kind of safety you build a future around. Instead, the United States split them apart.
When they crossed the border seeking asylum, one was granted protection. The other was sent to a cell.
Filipp, 25, was granted asylum last year after months in detention. Today, he lives in Austin, Texas — still rebuilding, still afraid, but free. His husband, Danil, 21, is detained in Georgia, awaiting yet another court date that may or may not happen. The judge has already failed to appear twice. The system that promised due process has become another form of punishment.
They fled persecution in Russia only to find it here again — this time wrapped in American paperwork and policy. When a judge told them their marriage was not “enough evidence” to prove their relationship, it wasn’t just bureaucratic cruelty. It was the echo of every government that has refused to see LGBTQ+ love as legitimate, every border that has treated queer people as problems to solve instead of humans to protect.
At Refuge America, we hear stories like this every week. Queer asylum seekers arrive with nothing but hope, only to discover that safety in the United States is a lottery. One wins protection; another is locked away — not for a crime, but for daring to seek refuge together. Detention doesn’t make America safer. It makes freedom conditional.
Filipp and Danil’s story began in the shadows of Russia’s “gay propaganda” law — a policy used to censor, jail, and erase LGBTQ+ people. When they escaped, they joined a small online network of Russian-speaking queer asylum seekers helping each other navigate America’s asylum process. That network led Filipp to our shelter system, where he now shares a small apartment with other refugees. He tries to help those still inside detention — including his husband, still fighting for release after more than a year.
Each hearing brings new humiliation. Danil has been transferred between facilities in three states. His requests to speak with Filipp are often denied. The same government that claims to defend family values has decided their marriage is irrelevant.
Meanwhile, private companies profit from every day he remains locked up. Detention beds are paid for by taxpayers but filled by human beings whose only “crime” is crossing a border to survive. Every delay, every appeal, every missing judge adds profit to the ledger. This isn’t protection. It’s commodified cruelty.
As someone who has sought asylum myself — a gay man who fled Nigeria and spent time in U.S. detention — I know what that cage feels like. I know how it crushes your faith in justice, how it teaches you that “due process” is often just a prettier name for waiting in pain. When America detains refugees, it doesn’t just hold bodies; it holds potential, purpose, and love hostage.
This case exposes the deep hypocrisy in our system. We celebrate Pride Month with rainbow flags on government buildings while queer refugees sit in isolation cells. We tweet #LoveIsLove while immigration judges dismiss same-sex marriages as “insufficient proof.” We tell the world to come here for freedom — then we warehouse people in private prisons when they do.
The U.S. asylum system was built to protect people fleeing persecution. It is now being weaponized to recreate it. ICE detention centers have become extensions of the same fear people are escaping — places where identity is questioned, love is suspect, and dignity is optional.
Filipp and Danil should be together. That’s not a radical statement. It’s the bare minimum of humanity.
We need immediate reforms that treat asylum seekers as people, not quotas. That means ending the detention of LGBTQ+ migrants, investing in community-based alternatives, and enforcing family unity policies. It means recognizing that the right to love — and to live safely with the person you love — is not negotiable.
Refuge America was founded on a simple belief: that those who flee danger deserve refuge, not another round of persecution. Filipp and Danil’s story is not an exception. It’s a mirror. It shows us what happens when a nation that once stood as a beacon of freedom decides some freedoms can wait.
As Americans, we cannot claim to be a refuge while turning love into evidence and freedom into punishment. If one is free, both must be free.
Until every refugee is safe, America’s promise remains unkept.
Edafe Okporo is the founder of Refuge America and author of Asylum: A Memoir and Manifesto. He is a Nigerian-born human rights activist and asylee living in New York City.
Edafe Okporo
Edafe OkporoCourtesy
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This article originally appeared on Out: This Russian gay couple deserves U.S. refuge, not persecution
