C (8:13)

Okay, thank you. Thank you.

B (8:16)

And that's when I met German.

C (8:19)

Hello.

B (8:20)

Hello. We're from local press.

C (8:22)

Okay, I understand.

B (8:24)

So German was this tall Russian guy. He was wearing this plaid shirt, thick muscles, some tattoos in his arms.

C (8:32)

Long story short, we asked a political asylum into the United States. And against our will, without signing any papers, they transported us here.

B (8:47)

So he told me, they're not illegal immigrants. They're not criminals either. They were trying to find asylum in the US which means they were in danger in their home countries, which was completely different from what we had thought, right? At this point, we had expected them to be to have broken the law in some way, to end up stuck in this pencil factory in the middle of nowhere. But before I could ask another question, I see the police approaching. We don't know if we're going to be arrested. We're not sure if we're ever going to be able to talk to them again. So I just wrote my phone number on a piece of paper and handed it off to them. And then the police arrive, and they kind of stand at the very edge of the fence, blocking our conversation with the migrants. They get our IDs, they write down our names, but in the end, they just tell us that we can't talk to them and that we need to go. So we Just walked back to our car. So after the police sends us off, we've been standing in the heat and we see this bar about 100 yards down the highway. And it's not a bar in the way you would understand. A bar looks like this is more like a shack in the middle of nowhere. But a beer sounds like a great idea. We walk out there. So as we're sitting down for a beer, I check my phone and there's a text. It says, hello, got your number. We'll share it with everybody just in case. My name is German. The first thing that surprises me is, okay, they have phones and they have Internet. German starts sending me photos and videos that he's captured. Katem looks like this just big old empty warehouse. There's this like metal ceiling, which immediately makes me think how hot it must be in there. So many kids. You see kids in this like playground area. Colorful mats surrounded by this small fence. No toys, just some mats. There's this crowded cafeteria. Honestly, it's not so different from what you would imagine a jail looks like inside. It suddenly felt like, well, this is it. We found our story. Because I don't think that at this point anybody understood what was happening inside Katam. This is already so much more than we set out to do. We have contact with someone inside. And at this point I have so many questions. So why are they here? Why were they sent here? How was that journey? And these are questions that German is probably not going to be able to answer over text. And then I remember the hole in the fence that I saw from the drone. And I asked them, do you know about this hole in the fence? Would you be willing to use it to come and talk to me? It must have been around 6:37. It was pouring rain. Like one of the worst rains I've ever had to deal with. Yeah, he just kind of appear. He's wearing his. His hoodie. Do you want to say your name for the camera? Just so we have a div.

C (12:33)

Okay. My name is German Germanovich. I am Russian, but my name is German.

B (12:44)

Thank you, man. Thank you.

C (12:45)

Thank you very much.

B (12:48)

Do you have to get back soon or.

C (12:50)

No, I've got time there. You don't.

B (12:52)

I think he was very nervous at first. I remember he was speaking fast.

C (12:56)

When we bought tickets from Russia to Turkey and then to Mexico. They told us that there will be very hard to get into Mexico right now.

B (13:10)

So he had fled Russia with his wife and his six year old son. They took all of their savings, they sold all of their Things and they flew to Mexico. They were applying for asylum in the US and they did the process through the Customs and Border Protection app. They had gotten an interview, and they were waiting in Mexico for about eight months for that interview to happen. Just a few days before the interview was scheduled, he was canceled. So in their complete desperation, they drove to the border near San Diego and presented themselves to the immigration officer and requested asylum. But the timing of that could not have been worse.

C (13:54)

When we came to the border, a supervisor, I think a woman asked us why we came here. I told her we came here to ask about political asylum. She told we've got new president. We don't give political asylum anymore. We read the newspapers and something like that.

B (14:14)

It was January 2025. Trump had just come into office and he put a stop to all asylum requests, stranding tens of thousands of people like German. And this was devastating to him because he had made plans. He knew people in the US he had a job lined up in California. He had shipped his stuff there.

C (14:33)

And then they put us into the cell. The temperature was very cold.

B (14:40)

So German and his family were taken to the Otay Mesa Detention Center. He told me he was separated from his wife and his son and sent with other men. He was put in a cell with up to 15 other people. They had to sleep on the floor. There was a toilet in the middle of the room. The light was always on. He was very poorly fed. He mentioned that he lost a lot of weight. They were only allowed to shower every three or four days. Guards would mock them and insult them.

C (15:11)

We are shocked about how they treated us. And thankfully, we are still alive.

B (15:20)

He wanted to talk a lot about this. Like, I think this pain was very recent for him because, you know, he had been there the week before, right? Or two weeks before.

C (15:32)

On 25th of February, they woke up at 3am Put everyone in handcuffs. But they told us that we are going to the military base.

B (15:43)

And after 31 days, they were put in handcuffs, put in a bus and shipped out. They had no idea where. They were sent to an airport and put in a plane.

C (15:55)

They told us, you are going to Costa Rica. You want it or you don't want it? They lied to us.

B (16:01)

I was like, crouched, like, shrinking, and like. Like the hunchback in the chair, just sitting next to him and listening to his story, you know, what do you do? I guess, you know, I don't want to say I'm a journalist, but at least I was wearing a journalist hat in that interview. Like, how do you react like, what do you do? How do you make them feel better? I'm really sorry.

C (16:23)

But why are you. What are you sorry for? You. You did nothing bad. Your government did nothing bad. They're in the, you know, they cannot say no to United States. We know how politics works. They cannot. This is the most powerful country in the world and they know how to make their business.

B (16:49)

That's all Germany is, right? Costa Rica is such a small country. Our economy is so dependent on the US for exports and for tourism. This was before the tariffs announcement came out. So everybody was kind of on edge on whether if we play nicely to the States, we're not going to get any tariffs. I don't think we had any choice but to comply or risk some form of political retaliation from the U.S.

C (17:21)

Can.

B (17:21)

I walk with you as you go back? I want to walk with you through, like I know, to the hole. So maybe after sitting with German for two hours, I asked him if he could take me to the hole. It had stopped raining. And as we walk through the jungle and we get to the hole in the fence and German walks in, my first thought is, what the hell am I doing here? Am I the right person to document this? Am I the right person to tell the world what US Immigration and also the Costa Rican government has done to this asylum seeker? I see him kind of like far off into the darkness of Katam. And we just stand there trying to get some shots because this is obviously the way I wanted to start my YouTube video about this. There is only one word for what's happening here. Dystopian. Because this is what we had to do to capture the story of the 200 detainees that the Trump administration reported to our country. So I get back to San Jose after another six hour road trip back, and basically the next one and a half to two weeks is, you know, working 8:00pm through 1 in the morning every day to try and get this story cut into a decent video. I have to do this in my own time because this is not my job. My job is running a tech startup that also happens to make some YouTube videos about tech. When I first told my team that I felt there was a great story here, what they told me is like, that doesn't really belong in our channel. And they're right about it. So this is a video that I had to put in my personal YouTube channel. It doesn't have a lot of subscribers. It's basically been abandoned for three or four years.

C (19:20)

We just want to make an attention to this situation because maybe it can help us and other people in our condition.

B (19:30)

So German's interview was of course, the biggest part of the video. If this story connected with anyone, it was because people were able to connect with German. Thanks a lot for watching. This story is bound to change a lot. It's an evolving story, but I wanted to give you a glimpse of what's happening today. I don't make a lot of videos on this channel, but I appreciate the subscription. And if you're into tech or business, make sure to check our videos. I'm really sad when a video that I make underperforms and this video absolutely underperformed for me. I don't know how many views the video has today. I haven't checked. 10,000 people. I chased this story because I think it's a million view story. Something about the story and the way I put it together maybe wasn't exciting enough or I don't know. There's also so much terrible stuff happening in the world. I don't know if 200 deportees in the middle of nowhere in Costa Rica is relevant enough of a story. That's where it ends. Like, that's where the story ends. I have a job to do. I have a family to get back to. But only a few days after the video went live, German sends me another video.

C (20:37)

Hi, Kaja, how are you? I've got an interesting thought. I escaped one prison to get to another. What for? I don't know.

B (20:48)

And then another one. And he keeps texting me.

C (20:51)

Hope dies last. And everything that I do, I do with the hope that it will help me.

B (21:04)

What else can I do? Like, is he texting me because he thinks I can help? Maybe he just needs somebody to talk to.

C (21:13)

This what we are doing right now, exchanging with our videos, exchanging with our audios. I've got some reason to make this day useful.

A (21:36)

When we return, this story is not done with Kaya, not by a long shot. Snap Judgment. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. We left Kaya, a YouTuber and tech entrepreneur in San Jose, Costa Rica, drove seven hours to cover a story that no one else had. 200 people were flown in from the US many of whom had been seeking asylum to Costa Rica, and they were locked up in an old pencil factory in the Costa Rican jungle. Thanks to a hole in the fence, Kaya was able to interview one of these detainees, a Russian man named German. Kaya put up a video with their interview, expecting a huge response. There wasn't one. But now German keeps messaging him Snap Judgment.

B (22:50)

So I know I've Become a bit of a lifeline for German. I talk to him more than I talk to many of my friends. And as the reality of their situation sinks in, the fact that he and his family are truly stuck here. He's sharing all these really complicated feelings with me.

C (23:10)

The feelings every day are the same. A lot of stress, a lot of worries, a lot of fighting with despair. We're still waiting, but what we are waiting for, we don't know.

B (23:25)

German is usually shirtless. In the videos that he sends me.

C (23:29)

It's me sorry for being naked because it's too hot here and usually when I wear a T shirt it's all in sweat. So this is the place where we live and it's a bit messy here right now. I'm gonna clean this place.

B (23:49)

He and his family share this small windowless room with two other families. So 11 people total in this tiny non ventilated room. A couple of bunk beds, bars on the door.

C (24:02)

And he says, guess who my wife. And who's this?

B (24:09)

He turns the camera to his son who's holding a smartphone.

C (24:12)

He's doing. What's he doing?

B (24:14)

Duolingo.

C (24:15)

He's doing duolingo. Learning English and German.

B (24:21)

Son. I'm going to call him Sasha. That's not his real name, but I want to protect his privacy. Sasha is a small skinny boy with brown hair and he looks a lot like his dad. And in early April, after a month and a half or so that they've been stuck in Katam, it was Sasha's birthday. He was turning 7.

C (24:40)

And I told my wife, let's miss this birthday and later when we can come out, we will make the whole day for him. At first she said yes to calm me down. But later she decided to make a birthday to him. So she made a 100% job.

B (25:01)

German's wife, I'll call her Eva, also not her real name. She set up a limbo game and this whole play day for Sasha and his friends, kids from 20 some different countries. She even managed to order a cake. She had to ask a favor from the child psychologist that visit the facility to bring one from the outside.

C (25:31)

She made this day perfect for my son.

B (25:46)

I feel like seeing his wife smile that day as their son blew out the candles as he had to celebrate his birthday in this weird place. That was a big deal for German. Lately he had been seeing her struggle.

C (26:03)

Yesterday it was a very complicated day. My wife, she began to cry at the cafeteria during the eat because she was tired of all of this situation. And her mother calls her and her relative calls her every day. And in her mind, she is already in Russia.

B (26:30)

I've been connecting these bits and pieces, details that they've given me about how their life used to be back in Russia. They were a middle class family. They lived a pretty normal life in St. Petersburg, I believe, not too different from mine. And everything changed in one moment. One day, German walks into the apartment and tells Eva that they need to flee the country because the police are after him. How she married a fitness coach. German used to be a fitness coach. That's why he's so buff. But he took this side gig working as a poll worker at a polling place for the presidential election. The job of a poll worker is supposed to be collecting votes or counting votes or helping people vote. But in Russia, his job was just filling out ballots for Putin. This was fraud.

C (27:31)

I knew how they fraud on the elections. And I wanted to reveal was my little revenge.

B (27:41)

German told me that he was angry about the war in Ukraine. He was tired of living under this regime all his life. So he decided to film himself doing this. And he was planning to send that video to the anti corruption foundation that was started by Alexei Navalny.

C (27:57)

I thought that I was a genius at this time, that everything went by my plan. It was very exciting moment for me.

B (28:07)

After filming this video, as he was leaving the polling place, he doesn't know why, but a security guard stopped him, asked for his phone and saw the footage. German was caught. He was taken to a security room and he was left alone while the guards went to call the police.

C (28:26)

I decided to escape and I ran out of this security room, straight to the door and just ran to the house. I know the consequences. You will be imprisoned or you will go to the war.

B (28:45)

German was afraid that he'd be sent to the front lines in Ukraine. To him, this is a death sentence. And that night when he got home, he told his wife everything.

C (28:57)

Oh, she was upset. She was upset. But the thing is, she didn't tell me that I was an idiot, but I actually was because I made this situation happen. She asked me what we gonna do, what we gonna not what you gonna do, but what we gonna do at this time, I thought that I need to leave country alone. And she told that no, we are family. So she's gonna be with me everywhere. And no, it encouraged me a lot. She's a real. She's my real wife. I don't know how to express you this. She's a real w. So I worry about my wife, I worry about my son's. Education because he's seven and it's time for him to go to the school. And I just don't want to be a failure for my family. But you know, all these things, they push us very hard into despair, into the darkness.

B (30:20)

Alright, so I'm on my way now to pick German and his family up. I'm driving them to Gulfito, which is a small town about a 45 minute drive from Katam. In early May, I drove out to Katam to talk to German again because I learned that he was now free to leave the center. The Costa Rican government had passed a resolution ending the detention of the people at Gatem. German wasn't trapped behind the fence anymore. And since this was a long road trip, my plan was to spend the weekend there. I took my fiance and daughter. They were kind of, or at least my fiance was kind of invested in this story a little bit. Also knowing that German was going to come out with his family and I guess I wanted to kind of level the playing field in the sense that hey, I'm not just some YouTuber guy that let's just try and extract the story. Like I have a family as well. We picked up German and his family at Katam and that day we went out for lunch at this marina that was near the hotel. A little bit of like two families just grabbing lunch on a vacation. So different from the experience of the past three, four months for that family.

C (31:44)

One, two, three. One, two, three. Microphone check.

B (31:47)

But I'm still following up on this story. And we're at this hotel in Golfito. I'm shooting an interview with him. I had this burning question for German. Now that they're free to leave Katam, what were they going to do? What were their plans? You said Canada, Australia are probably the best options for you if you get asylum. That's plan A.

C (32:08)

Yes, this is plan A. This is the dream, number one. Okay, let's call it a dream because.

B (32:14)

So German's dream right now is asylum in an English speaking country. He is thinking Canada, Australia, England.

C (32:23)

I know language.

B (32:24)

Honestly, one of the reasons why he's been sharing this story with me in the first place is that he's hoping that we might get enough attention from one of those governments that they might see his case and intervene. But that hasn't happened. What's plan B? What's the next option?

C (32:42)

Well, plan B is to go back.

B (32:45)

To the United States and I don't have to tell him that trying to get into the US would be a challenge.

C (32:51)

And I don't believe that with the current administration it's even possible. Even if courts say yes, you can go back, we will.

B (33:01)

They won't let you.

C (33:02)

Okay. The current administration won't let us. You know, I'm a fitness coach. I'm a fitness coach. I never made a deep research about how what's the society feels about immigrants. And I know when you speak about immigrants, you most mostly speak about criminals. So immigrant is equal to criminals right now in the people's mind because that is image they create. And there are some reasons for this image being created. I know, but I never thought that I will be this faceless immigrant too.

B (33:43)

As for staying in Costa Rica, they're not even considering it.

C (33:47)

We know nothing about this country. We don't know language, we don't know culture.

B (33:51)

We don't have someone, they'd have to find housing. They don't even know if they'd get a work permit.

C (33:59)

We can't take these options.

B (34:02)

But as it turns out, there is one other option that he tells me about. It's one option that I know that German doesn't want to take, but he might have to.

C (34:17)

Maybe I can't return to my country. 100 by my family can. So maybe it's better for my family that they can return and I will stay here. But this is, you know, this is not Plan A, this is Plan H.

B (34:35)

I can see how worried he is about his wife.

C (34:40)

It's difficult for her because she's a mother. First of all, she's a mother and she think about. She heard a lot of promises, she heard a lot of things for me because I told her that soon we will manage with this situation. But there is no end. We don't see an end. And I sometimes don't understand what she's wanting to tell me. Sometimes she don't understand my feelings. And I know one family who returned to Russia, Russia voluntarily and they've got a little kid and they divorced immediately after all of this. But at the same time, I understand that we can make this hard decision easily because there is a possibility that we won't meet each other. You know what I'm talking about. So she will live in Russia, I will live in Costa Rica or other another country.

B (35:38)

All right, so this is a little voice note post spending the day with German. During the interview, German said that there's a chance that him and his like him, he'll stay and his wife and son might go back to Russia. Which tears my heart, man. I'm a parent as well. It would Just break me to have to separate myself from my family. It would break me even more if it's my fault and you know, all for one mistake or for one, you know, attempt at doing the right thing. I guess I can't, I can't imagine it. By the end of June, German and his family have been here for about six months. Of the 200 people that arrived in Katem, only about 28 are left. Some return to their own countries, some just slip out of the fence and disappear. Now the pencil factory feels practically empty. And from the texts and the videos that German keeps sending me, I see him and his family just hit rock bottom.

C (37:00)

Hi guys. I just had a panic attack here right now because I hate this place. I can't be here anymore. My wife lays down the whole day and I just was at medic because I couldn't breathe. I can't see these rusty walls. I can't stand this climate anymore. This is awful. I don't know what to do.

B (37:29)

You know, seeing him like that, I could see how his wife could just take this chance and leave because he was just getting to this, to this extreme. And I'm sad. I'm really sad. Suddenly, like there's this much bigger urgency. Like they feel how trapped they are, you know, I don't think that I can help every family out there. I realize that. But if there's something I can do to keep this family from breaking apart, then it's worth a shot.

A (38:21)

When we return to keep German's family together, Kaya throws a Hail Mary. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. When last we left, German and his family were deported to a pencil factory in rural Costa Rica and are considering splitting apart. German staying in Costa Rica, his wife and son potentially returning to Russia. But Kaya, a YouTuber who stumbled into this story, Kaya doesn't want to see that happen. Snap judgment.

B (39:09)

Hey German, just stopping to say hi. I've been thinking of, you know, it could be useful for you guys to see the city or, and probably where you would live if you were to stay. Like you guys are not considering Costa Rica as a place to stay? You know, would you change your mind maybe if you saw that? Costa Rica is much more than this little glimpse of a very remote area that you've been presented with. Katam. It takes us a couple tries, but in early July, finally, German and his family arrive in San Jose after a second seven hour bus ride. And the first thing we do is we go for pizza and we go to this park that's surrounded by high rises. It's a cloudy and chilly day. It's definitely not my favorite kind of day in the city. But for them, for them, it's what they've been waiting for, especially compared to this heat and humidity in Katam. It's maybe the way our day in the St. Petersburg looks like. And I can see that immediately they feel more at home. They're city people. And at some point, German even tells me that he's got goosebumps.

C (40:36)

Even you see these goosebumps. It's because of the air. Finally, it's not so hot. And I like this. And I. It's my body reaction and it's my inner reaction, you know. Now it's come by. It's very unusual for me to speak on camera.

B (40:55)

No, no, we're not. We're not going to have the camera. It's really just the audio. Ah. In this trip, I also got a chance to speak to German's wife Eva, through a translator. You can do it in Russian and that's fine. While their son Sasha played on the carpet of the studio with some Legos. When we saw each other in Golfito, you guys told me that you guys were thinking of going back to Russia and I was very scared because I didn't want to see your family break apart. At some point we were thinking to go back to Russia. However, now, thinking it through, I understand that that was the wrong decision to make. So after the interview ends, I notice that Eva just keeps talking to her translator. Our translator had brought her mother along, who was originally from Russia. So now my mother is telling her about the loss in Costa Rica and she's explaining that the kids has.

A (42:18)

Health.

B (42:19)

Insurance covered by the government, even if they need. And I could see it in Eva's eyes, this idea of a life in Costa Rica was starting to settle in her mind. So after a weekend in San Jose, the family goes back to Katem. But only a week later, they leave the pencil factory again, hopefully for the last time.

C (42:53)

Hi, Diane. So this is the beginning of our trip. We just left Catem and.

B (43:02)

I think.

C (43:02)

In about seven hours we will be at Monteverde. And you know, we had a little.

B (43:12)

I know Monteverde as this beautiful, lush, really popular tourist destination. The poster of Costa Rica. Any image that you see about Costa Rica and rainforests probably comes from Monteverde. And this group of Quakers lives there. And they're mostly Americans or descendants of Americans. And they have offered housing to some of the families in Katam for up to a year.

C (43:39)

So this is My first impression about our new place to stay. This place is far from everyone else, four or five kilometers away, down from the mountain, and it's the cavern in the woods.

B (43:58)

So you see, I can see that the place is just not what they imagined. It's remote, it's rugged, it's rainy. Their house is a small shack. It doesn't have insulation. It doesn't have Internet. Their neighbor's dog barks all night.

C (44:17)

Oh, my God.

B (44:18)

Oh, my God. Their sink is constantly running and overflows to the floor. And German is disappointed. So is Eva.

C (44:29)

She's still balancing between going home or staying here.

B (44:36)

But, you know, slowly, though, over the next few weeks, I can hear the tone of German's messages starting to change.

C (44:45)

I want to share with you my new expressions because, as I expected, they are different. We visited our neighbors, we spoke with them. Yes, most of them are old people, but I missed this communication there. All of them, they're nice and we've got a plan how to live here right now.

B (45:09)

He sends me videos from the classes that the Quaker community offers them in their meeting house.

C (45:17)

Touch the head.

B (45:18)

They're teaching them Spanish. They have pottery lessons, yoga.

C (45:22)

Today in the morning, we had high intensity interval training classes. And it was very good for me because after that I was full of strength and I missed it a lot. Now we're climbing.

B (45:36)

They go on hikes in the mountains.

C (45:38)

Here's my son trying to climb everywhere.

B (45:42)

And towards the end of July, German sends me this video of his son riding a pony. German's walking alongside him. He's holding the camera, very proud.

C (45:58)

This is my son.

B (46:03)

And when I saw it, I realized that I think this is the first time I have ever heard German truly laugh.

A (46:34)

German and his family are among the thousands of people deported to third countries by the US since January of 2025. They are still living in limbo. They have not applied for asylum in Costa Rica. We don't know how many of the original group of pencil factory asylum seekers remain in Costa Rica. Only three families, including Germans, are still with the Quakers. We do know that some of the pencil factory folks went back to the US border to try to claim asylum again. And the government put them right back into detention again. Though at least a few families with kids were later released into the US while they waited for their asylum cases to proceed. But after the shooting of two National Guard members by an Afghan immigrant who'd recently been granted asylum, the Trump administration responded by mutually halting all asylum decisions. For how long, we don't know. We did reach out to the Department of Homeland Security to ask about the deportations to Costa Rica and the conditions that German told us he experienced at the border. They didn't respond. Big, big thanks to German, to Ava, to Sasha. Also thanks to Julia Neusner. You can see more of Kaya's documentaries about tech and society on his YouTube channel, Slide Beam. Original score for this piece was by Renzo Goriot, was produced by John Facil and Kay. Now, if you missed even a moment, know that an entire world of Snap storytelling awaits the Snap Judgment podcast, available wherever you get your podcast. KQD in San Francisco is Snap Judgment's orbiting Hall of Justice. Stuff is brought to you, but the team that knows it when it sees it accept, of course, for the uber producer, Mr. Mark Ristich, who, if he sees it, does not know it. No Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. On Team snap, the union representative, producers, artists, editors and engineers are members of the national association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications workers of America, AFL CIO Local 51. And there's Nancy Lopez, Pat Mesquite Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goriot, Jonathan Seal, Shayna Shealy, Taylor Decock, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge. My name is Glenn Washington, and sometimes every once in a great while, this actually is the news. But on those rare occasions, rest assured, this still is. PRX.