Mikhail Sebastian is an Armenian from Azerbaijan who came to the United States on a Soviet passport in 1995. After the break-up of the U.S.S.R., neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan would take him, and Mr. Sebastian ended up stateless.
He filed for asylum in the U.S., but his claim was ultimately denied (in 2002) and he was ordered removed. The U.S. immigration authorities took Mr. Sebastian into custody, but after six months, he was released because there was no country that would accept him. As with other people who cannot be deported, DHS issued Mr. Sebastian a work permit. He was allowed to remain in the United States, but he did not have permission to travel abroad and then return.
According to a recent article in Salon, Mr. Sebastian has attempted to satisfy his urge to travel by visiting the most exotic American destinations he can find, including Guam, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii. To facilitate his travels, he has a “World Passport” from the World Service Authority, which purports to be a global-governmental organization. A World Passport is a document that is supposed to confer world citizenship and allow travel. I have some limited experience with the World Passport, and while I think it’s a nice idea, I would not feel confident to use it as a travel document. Worse, I think their website is a bit misleading. They claim that many countries accept the World Passport. While many countries may have accepted the passport once or twice (possibly by mistake), most countries do not generally accept the passport for immigration purposes.
In any case, as part of his overseas travel in U.S. territory, Mr. Sebastian took a vacation to American Samoa, an unincorporated territory (whatever that means) of the United States. His big mistake seems to have been flying over to plain old Samoa, which is an independent country. Even if he had not traveled to Samoa, the trip to American Samoa required passing through customs, and when immigration authorities checked him before allowing him to return to the mainland (and saw the World Passport), they found that he had an old removal order. As a result, he was not permitted to board the return flight, and he has been stranded in American Samoa ever since.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement about Mr. Sebastian:
In 2002, an immigration judge with the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) ordered Sebastian to depart the United States. At that time, he was not in ICE custody as the agency had deferred action on his removal. In the meantime, he had been granted employment authorization. In December 2011 when Mr. Sebastian traveled to American Samoa and Samoa, he was prohibited from returning to the United States due to the immigration judge’s order.
So for the last 10 months, Mr. Sebastian has been stuck waiting for DHS to allow him to return to the mainland, and there is no end to his ordeal in sight. Mr. Sebastian has been writing about his predicament, and you can read more about him in his own words here. It seems he spends most of his time at the local McDonald’s, which has air conditioning and internet access.
His case is particularly strange in that he is actually in U.S.-controlled territory, but he is not allowed to return to the mainland. If nothing else, Mr. Sebastian’s story serves as a cautionary tale. If you have some type of deferred action, withholding of removal or Torture Convention relief, you are better off not pushing the limits by traveling to American “territories.” It seems that Mr. Sebastian’s case is receiving some high-level attention, so likely it will be resolved at some point. But I am quite certain that after 10 months in Samoa, he wishes he had never taken his vacation in the first place.