When Alexei arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border last June, he expected he’d have to wait a few weeks — maybe a month at most — while immigration officials determined whether he was eligible to enter the U.S.

Under the Refugee Act of 1980, people fleeing persecution on “account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” can apply for asylum when they reach the U.S. This status grants them protection from deportation and an eventual pathway to citizenship.

As Alexei told an officer in an interview, he had good reason to flee his native Russia: The 27-year-old artist from Moscow had put out music with antiwar lyrics after Russia invaded Ukraine. He watched other musicians face threats of prison time and accusations of being “foreign agents” over their activism, and he began to fear for his life.

But after being told he passed that interview, and waiting three weeks in the Imperial Regional Detention Facility near the town of Calexico, California, Alexei was handed a piece of paper by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer stating that he would not be released. He would have to argue his case for asylum from detention, because he was considered a threat to national security.

In the last seven months of the Biden administration, immigration officials detained thousands of asylum-seekers like Alexei, who is using a pseudonym to protect his identity because he fears repercussions for his immigration status in the U.S. Many of these immigrants were detained because they came from countries that were once part of the Soviet Union, asylum-seekers and their attorneys told The Intercept. Attorneys representing immigrants from Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, or several other countries in Central Asia that have significant numbers of Russian speakers have also told The Intercept that their clients have been forced to wait in detention centers until their asylum claims could be heard before a judge. Reporting from other outlets has unearthed memos that appear to back up this policy.

This is a departure from previous policy, when most asylum-seekers were granted parole, which releases them into the country to stay with family or friends until they can appear in court to argue their case for asylum. Detention has typically been reserved for people deemed to pose a threat to national security or a flight risk — labels now applied to the majority of Russians and other asylum-seekers from post-Soviet countries, The Intercept found.

It could be a preview of what’s to come under the new administration, when detention is likely to be applied much more broadly; one of President Donald Trump’s first executive orders this week directed immigration officials to grant parole only for “urgent humanitarian reasons or a significant public benefit” from the asylum-seeker being present in the U.S. Trump has also suspended new asylum applications until what he’s called an “invasion at the southern border has ceased,” although the cases of those who already managed to apply before he took office will still have to make their way through the courts.

Alexei ended up spending five months in detention, first in California — where he said about half of his center was of Russian-speaking origin — and then in Texas. His wife, who traveled with him, was held in a different detention center in California and then moved to Louisiana; they were only able to have three 10-minute phone calls during the entire time they were detained. And although both of them won their immigration cases and were able to enter the U.S. after being granted asylum, the psychological stress and uncertainty of their detention continues to weigh on Alexei.

“They did not explain the reason for [labeling] you a security threat, they simply [labeled] absolutely everyone,” Alexei said over the phone a few weeks after his release in mid-November, from a temporary home near Chicago where he’s staying with relatives. “Because of this, all of us Russians lived with the hope that if not today, then tomorrow, this ban would be lifted.”

Harsher treatment of asylum-seekers began in June of last year, asylum-seekers and attorneys told The Intercept. That’s around the same time that the Washington Examiner published a leaked memo, which instructed Border Patrol officers in the San Diego sector to automatically place citizens of six countries — Russia, Georgia, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan — into expedited removal proceedings. U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to questions from The Intercept asking to confirm the authenticity of the memo.

Being placed in expedited removal allows people from these countries to be deported without an asylum hearing unless they claim that they fear returning to their home countries and pass a “credible fear interview.” Asylum-seekers who pass this interview are also more likely to be detained, as they are banned from posting bond, which would allow them to put up a sum of money as a guarantee that they would show up for their asylum hearings.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on the allegations that asylum-seekers from post-Soviet countries were being targeted for detention or expedited removal based on their national origin.

No publicly available data exists to show the rate at which different nationalities are detained after applying for asylum. But data provided by the Department of Homeland........

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