Still in shock that his wife was deported, Alexander Makarchuk is making plans to visit her in St. Petersburg, fearing that Yana Slobodova is severely depressed after being forced back to her native Russia.
“I thought she was really strong at the airport, but it went the opposite way after she arrived there,” he said immediately after talking to her Tuesday morning, March 2. “She sounded really stressed out, and she doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”
Her father, Boris Slobodov, who traveled with her, told Makarchuk that his daughter was barely speaking to him as well.
Makarchuk hopes to leave in the next week.
Slobodova, 30, is the Russian Jewish piano teacher whose plight became public last month, after she was held in an Oakland jail for three weeks. She entered the United States eight years ago with false papers, and then applied for asylum as a Russian Jew. In the meantime, she married Makarchuk, 33, a naturalized citizen, and they had a son, 21-month-old Nikita.
Her parents, who live in San Mateo, will become eligible for citizenship in several months.
Despite numerous appeals on her behalf, immigration officials finally rejected her request.
Her attorney, Marc Van Der Hout of Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale in San Francisco, is already strategizing how to bring her back.
“We will appeal to the Department of Homeland Security to parole her back on humanitarian grounds,” he said, explaining that the review process of her appeal could take more than a year, and she deserves to be with her family in the meantime.
“She’s in a very precarious state, and there’s no justification for continuing to separate this family,” Van Der Hout said. “We are hopeful that the people in Washington can now look at this case independently from the San Francisco officials who treated Yana’s case so inhumanely.”
Makarchuk said his wife had started feeling extremely anxious upon landing in Russia, and was able to see a doctor. But she cannot go again until her travel documents are in order.
Her departure from SFO came after a month of appeals to the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services by her attorneys, the Bay Area Council for Jewish Rescue and Renewal, her colleagues and piano students from the Community Arts School in Mountain View, and concerned citizens.
A well-liked piano teacher, Slobodova was the main wage earner in her family, as Makarchuk suffered a back injury last year while on the job as a plumber.
About 50 people attended a noontime rally on her behalf in the rain Thursday, Feb. 26, outside the BCIS building in downtown San Francisco. Her supporters, including some of her students and neighbors, had hoped for a last-minute reprieve.
Though the BACJRR had appealed to elected officials as well, it was Rep. Tom Lantos, (D-San Mateo) who was trying to reach immigration authorities in Washington on Friday, Feb. 27, in a last-ditch attempt to prevent her deportation. A final answer was expected by 3 p.m.
But that call never came.
So Slobodova spent her last day in America saying goodbye to her students and friends. She also went shopping for her favorite soap and magazines — things she can’t find in Russia.
Before sunrise on Sunday, Feb. 29, she said goodbye to her mother and her dog. Slobodova and Makarchuk, Nikita and their dog had moved in with her parents in a two-bedroom apartment in San Mateo.
She also kissed her son, not knowing when she will see him again. He was asleep, after not sleeping most of the prior night. That he was not awake was for the best, she said.
It was as if he knew, both parents said, in that he was making airplane noises and gestures earlier the day before.
“I told him I was going away, and that I’ll see him later” she said in the predawn hours at the airport. “I couldn’t say goodbye.”
Slobodova seemed fairly stoic as she stood in line to go through the security checkpoint, crying occasionally. “I don’t believe this is happening,” she said.
Slobodova, who wears braces on her teeth, was dressed in jeans and a chunky wool sweater for the journey. She was accompanied by her father, but he had a round-trip ticket, while she did not. They are staying in a friend’s apartment in Russia.
He was not looking forward to returning to the country he had fled, and feared for his daughter.
Through a translator, he noted that tombstones had been toppled recently at the Jewish cemetery where his parents are buried.
After Slobodova and Makarchuk bid their final goodbye, Makarchuk had a cup of coffee with Larisa Margulis of the BACJRR and two reporters.
Besides Slobodova’s attorneys continued work on the case, Lantos, too, indicated he would stay involved.
Makarchuk vowed he will do whatever it takes to bring his wife home.
“I’m an American citizen,” he said. “My son is an American citizen. I came here because I love this country, and I don’t want to go anywhere else. I have to get her back.”