ICE: Release Belarusian Asylum Seeker Katsiaryna Bartko - Don't Let Her Die in Detention

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The Issue

Па-беларуску  / По-русски

Help us get Katsiaryna from ICE detention in the US, before it's too late!

Katsiaryna Bartko is a young wonderful woman. She is a cancer survivor who fled political persecution in Belarus and asked the United States for asylum.

Instead, she has spent more than three months trapped in ICE detention in Leavenworth, Kansas, where her medical condition has grown dangerously worse.

While in custody in Florida, Bartko was hospitalized three times in four days for dangerously low calcium levels. After her thyroid cancer surgery, she needs daily hormone medication and calcium supplements just to stay alive.

"She will die in Belarus if she is deported," her partner, Dmitry Shyshov, said. 
And she may die in ICE detention without the medication she needs to survive.

In Belarus, she took part in the 2020 pro-democracy protests and later spoke out against the country's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
She would face arrest and persecution if returned.

I know this very well, as I am myself a Belarusian immigrant and activist. 

Her partner Dmitry says security forces have already shown up at her parents' home looking for her.

Katsiaryna followed the law. She filed her asylum application within the legal window after her student visa status changed. She deserves the chance to make her case for asylum from outside a detention cell, not from a hospital bed.

We are calling for Katsiaryna Bartko's immediate humanitarian release from ICE custody so she can receive proper, consistent medical care while her asylum case moves forward.

The Decision Makers

U.S. District Judge Daniel D. Crabtree
U.S. District Judge Daniel D. Crabtree
Robert Guadian
Robert Guadian
ICE Chicago Field Office Director

Supporter Voices

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