ICE detained Russian national with pending accepted green card petition at Burbank Airport

On July 13, 2026, ICE agents detained Galina Bobreneva, a Russian national, after she and her husband, U.S. citizen Brent Jindra, landed at Burbank Airport in California. Plainclothes agents approached Bobreneva, told her she had been selected for "secondary screening," questioned her for about 15 minutes, then handcuffed her and took her into custody. She was held overnight in a holding cell before being transferred to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California's Mojave Desert, where she said she slept under lights kept on around the clock, had limited access to showers and drinking water, and witnessed other detainees struggle to obtain medical care.

Bobreneva had entered the U.S. on a tourist visa in 2021, extended it after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and applied for asylum in 2022. She married Jindra in December 2025, and in April 2026 he filed a marriage-based green card petition on her behalf; by the time of her detention, the petition had been accepted for processing and she had already completed fingerprinting. Her immigration attorney, Patrick Valdez, said she was never out of lawful status because her green card application remained pending. The Department of Homeland Security disputed that characterization, saying in a statement that Bobreneva was "an illegal alien" who "overstayed her welcome in violation of our nation's laws" and that a pending application or work authorization "do NOT confer legal status in the United States." The GEO Group, which operates the Adelanto facility, declined to comment on Bobreneva's account of conditions there and referred questions to ICE.

Updates

2026-07-29 — Bobreneva released on $35,000 bond with ankle monitor [1][3]

Bobreneva was released on July 29, 2026, after a bond hearing set her bond at $35,000; she was fitted with an electronic ankle monitor and must report regularly to ICE while her case proceeds, with a first court appearance scheduled for October [1]. "I never thought that it was so easy to take freedom from anyone," she said of the detention [3].