Bluffton man ordered deported — how long will he have to wait to leave?

A Bluffton man detained by federal order at a prison for immigrants is one step closer to being deported after a judge recently declined to reopen his case.

Now his family is debating appealing the ruling, and wondering how long he’ll remain behind bars. He’s wondering the same thing, family members say — when an unlawfully present person is jailed and ordered deported, it can take a long time to actually do so.

Andrey Golubets, 27 — currently jailed in Lumpkin, Ga.’s Stewart Detention Center — has resided illegally in South Carolina since being brought from the Ukraine to the U.S. by his parents 20 years ago. His case is complicated and controversial, as first reported over the weekend by The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.

It offers a rare, educational glimpse inside the immigration system, according to a local attorney: Any American — regardless of their stance on immigration — can study his case to learn more about how the system works, and to consider its ironies.

“I feel so horrible for Andrey,” his mother, Iryna, said Tuesday morning. “Because either way” — whether he’s deported or files an appeal — “he’s in a bad position.”

Golubets has a string of misdemeanor convictions and guilty pleas — including two instances of driving under the influence, and two involving small amounts of marijuana — according to Beaufort County court records. Those crimes, his family said, hurt his earlier attempts to establish legal residency in the U.S. His criminal behavior, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is a factor that justifies his removal.

But his family says he’s changed since marrying a U.S. citizen in April 2015 and fathering a 10-month-old American child — factors they hoped would have worked in his favor and prompted a judge to reopen and reconsider his case.

They did not.

Nor did a pending I-130 form, according to court documents provided by the family. That U.S. Customs form would, in Golubets’ case, legitimize his marriage to Kristin Cooper, the first step to one day, maybe, getting a green card.

“It’s really starting to hit home,” his wife, Cooper, said Tuesday morning. “I’m getting scared.”

She said she and son Maksim — “Max,” for short — still plan to follow Golubets to the Ukraine, but that she didn’t know if she’d “live there long-term.” She said she might stay for months at a time instead. She’s still researching what life would be like in Eastern Europe. It would be her first-ever time traveling outside the U.S.

Cooper and Golubets were dating in April 2014 when he was previously arrested and detained in Lumpkin. In March 2015, a federal judge issued a final order of removal, but allowed Golubets to go free on an order of supervision, what ICE likens to criminal parole. The couple married soon after.

Golubets was required to go to security check-ins as part of his supervised release. He skipped a recent check-in on April 26, which prompted his arrest two days later, according to ICE. Cooper said they’d skipped because they heard immigrants were being detained at check-ins. They’d just attended a check-in on April 20, Cooper said, and their next visit had been scheduled for July. So they were spooked, she said, when they were suddenly told to come back to Charleston six days later.

The decision to skip, she said, likely played into the judge’s decision to deny a motion to reopen Golubets’ case.

It’s not known when he’ll be deported. ICE spokesman Bryan Cox said the agency could not say if someone was scheduled for removal, and when that would occur.

Several factors go into removal proceedings, according to Bluffton-based immigration attorney Aimee Deverall, who’s not representing Golubets in his deportation case. Travel arrangements have to be made. The detainee’s travel documentation has to be acquired. And the U.S. government must coordinate with the country of origin.

Deverall heard of a recent case in Lumpkin where a Costa Rican national, who’d grown tired of waiting to be deported, asked a judge for — and was granted — an order of voluntary departure. The man’s mother bought him a plane ticket home. And still, the man is being held being bars in Georgia.

“It’s sort of the weird irony,” Deverall said, referring to the immigration system. “There’s this rush to pick up people (who have deportation orders against them) ... but they can languish.”

“I know it’s just really common for families to be, like, ‘When are they going to deport him?’” Deverall said. “Because people want to get on with their lives.”

This story was originally published June 13, 2017 at 6:03 PM with the headline "Bluffton man ordered deported — how long will he have to wait to leave?."