Russian Faces US Deportation for Last Century’s Marijuana Possession

WASHINGTON, November 27 (RIA Novosti) – Time may be running out for a Russian man who is battling an attempt by US authorities to deport him from the United States over drug offenses he committed nearly two decades ago as a teenager, the Wisconsin State Journal reported Wednesday.

Alex Timofeev, 35, who was convicted of marijuana possession three times between the ages of 17 and 19, had thought his youthful transgressions were behind him until US immigration authorities arrived at his apartment last September, taking him into custody to face deportation.

He had already served a six-month jail sentence for his drug offenses, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

Timofeev, who emigrated to the United States aged 14, and whose two daughters are both US citizens, spent four months in a federal detention facility following his arrest last year, according to the newspaper.

Timofeev told the paper: “I feel as though I paid my dues. I don’t feel like banishment from everything I love, from my friends and family, fits the crime. It’s a pretty severe punishment.”

Although the judge in Timofeev’s case ruled against his deportation in January on the grounds that as a young man with limited English skills he had not been fully informed of the consequences of his original pleas when arrested over the drug charges, legal authorities appealed the decision.

The appeals court then returned Timofeev’s case to the original judge, who asked to be given until January 15 to make a decision.

Timofeev’s legal situation is not uncommon, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.

Last year the US Immigration and Naturalization Service deported 225,390 people convicted of crimes, usually for drug offenses or drunken driving.

Timofeev’s attorney Davorin Odrcic told the Wisconsin State Journal that several decades could pass between a crime being committed and deportation.

“I’ve had clients who were actually convicted of things in the ’70s that were placed into [deportation] proceedings 40 years later,” Odrcic was quoted as saying by the newspaper.