VIEW LARGER Community members called for the release of a 23-year-old Russian man seeking asylum in Tucson. His wife says deportation would mean being drafted into the Russian military amid the war with Ukraine. Angela Gervasi, AZPM News Note: This story has been updated to include a recent comment from ICE. About a week ago, Andrea Landavazo got married. She met her husband the previous summer, when he approached the prescription drop-off window at the pharmacy where Landavazo works. He introduced himself as Vlad. Landavazo noticed his smile. They exchanged numbers and talked on the phone for three hours. “He had these eyes that were just so nice. He just looked like a nice person overall. And in my life, that's what I was needing. Someone nice,” Landavazo recalled. Several days after their wedding, life shifted drastically for the young couple. On Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Vlad, who’d arrived in the United States four years ago to seek asylum from Russia. (AZPM agreed not to use Vlad’s last name at the request of his wife, who expressed fear of retribution.) Now, Landavazo worries her husband will be deported back to the country whose regime he fled. What’s more, she fears the 23-year-old man would be forced to fight in the war against Ukraine. “I even told one of the (ICE) officers, I told him, like, ‘you know he’s going to get drafted, right?’” Landavazo said. As she spoke Monday morning, Landavazo stood among several Rapid Response volunteers outside the ICE Tucson Field Office. They gripped signs demanding Vlad’s release. “ICE will send future soldier to Russia,” a piece of posterboard read. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday seeking information on Vlad’s case. AZPM verified Vlad’s status in ICE custody through the agency’s online detainee locator system. On Tuesday, after the publication of this story, an ICE spokesperson sent a statement confirming that agents took Vlad into custody on June 26. “He remains in ICE custody pending removal,” the ICE spokesperson said. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the United States has officially supported the latter country. Despite that stance, both the Biden and Trump administrations have facilitated deportations to Russia amid the ongoing war. Among those deported Russians are men who oppose the Russian government and its war against Ukraine. Last fall, for instance, the Department of Homeland Security deported 26-year-old Artyom Vovchenko to Russia, a New York Times investigation found. Vovchenko had sought asylum in the United States after fleeing his home country in opposition to the war. ‘I was texting him, calling him, no answer’ Vlad arrived in the United States in 2022 to seek political asylum, his wife said. As his immigration case progressed in Tucson, he worked overnight shifts stocking merchandise at Walmart. Then, earlier this year, he missed one of his court dates. “His hearing was rescheduled a couple times, so he just got confused on the appointment,” Landavazo added. In its Tuesday statement to AZPM, an ICE spokesperson said when Vlad “failed to appear for his immigration court hearing in Tucson, an immigration judge ordered (him) removed in absentia.” He received a deportation order in May, Landavazo said. Vlad filed a motion to reopen his case. It was denied. Then, Vlad filed a motion to reconsider, driving to the ICE Tucson Field Office on Friday to submit the paperwork. Landavazo waited to hear from him. An hour went by. Then, an hour-and-a-half. “I was getting, like, super nervous. I was texting him, calling him, no answer … And then I get a call from, it says, ‘no caller ID.’ And it’s Vlad,” Landavazo said. "And I just knew he got detained." He’d been taken into ICE custody. “ICE officers escorted (him) into the office, confirmed his identity and took him into custody under a final order of removal,” the agency spokesperson said. Vlad reassured his wife over the phone, telling Landavazo everything was OK. “I was like, ‘No, it's not,” she said. Landavazo said an ICE agent at the Tucson Field Office directed her to a phone number to find out more about her husband’s status in custody. She called the number on Friday, she said, but nobody answered. Since then, she said, she’s been calling local leaders that come to mind, ranging from members of Congress to the Governor’s Office. “I was just like, why don't I call everyone? Like yeah, they won't see it, but, like, I leave voice messages at my job a lot. I can leave a voice message,” she said. In its statement to AZPM, ICE urged people in similar situations to self-deport — a priority the agency has tirelessly encouraged under the Trump administration. “To avoid situations like this, illegal aliens can take control of their departure with the CBP Home App. The United States is offering illegal aliens up to $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport now,” the spokesperson said. Reached for comment Monday, Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva criticized the Trump administration's deportation practices in general, describing a “willingness to deport people into dangerous and even life-threatening circumstances.” “We saw this last week with the Supreme Court siding with the administration’s efforts to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians and Syrians,” she said in a statement. Congressman Juan Ciscomani’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Vlad's case.