A Belarusian asylum seeker held by ICE in Virginia says he is being denied critical medical care for a growing tumour, months after US immigration officers allegedly tried to force him onto a plane back to the country he fled.
For context, 35-year-old lorry driver Aliaksei Shcharbachenia has spent nearly a year in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at the Farmville Detention Center in rural Virginia, a facility now run by private prison giant CoreCivic. He arrived in the US in 2021 after fleeing political persecution in Belarus, and says he sought asylum only to find himself trapped in a system where guards control everything from his food to his access to a doctor.
