The US Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) has issued a precedent-setting ruling in the case of a Russian citizen that will make it harder for Russians who left the country after mobilization to obtain asylum in the United States. The human rights project Russian America for Democracy in Russia reported this.
The case concerned a man who left Russia in October 2022. In applying for asylum in the US, he argued that compulsory service in the Russian army should in itself be treated as a form of persecution.
A lower immigration judge agreed with that position and granted him asylum. However, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) later challenged the decision.
The BIA sided with the department and overturned the asylum grant. The commission said that conscription by itself, even when it concerns the armed forces of a state accused of war crimes, does not constitute sufficient grounds for protection.
At the same time, the man’s case was not closed окончательно: it was sent back for reconsideration on different grounds, under the Convention Against Torture.
The commission also stressed that US law recognizes five grounds for asylum: persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Conscription as such does not fall under those categories.
Applicants from Russia will now have to prove an individualized risk separately, such as the threat of being forced to commit war crimes because of an anti-war stance, political activity, or other circumstances explicitly recognized by law. In other words, service in the Russian army alone is no longer considered a sufficient risk for obtaining asylum.