Stateless Soviet Suffers in Samoan Sweatbox

"Mikhail Sebastian’s trip to American Samoa redefines the term nightmare vacation.  Instead of a five-day holiday to the lush, tropical US territory in the South Pacific, the 39-year-old has spent more than nine brutal months there caught in an immigration law hell.  Experts agree it’s an unprecedented illustration of America’s broken immigration system.  The key sticking point: Though he’s lived legally in Houston and the Los Angeles area for years under a special arrangement with the Department of Homeland Security, Sebastian is stateless, with no citizenship at all.  The federal government argues that during his vacation he “self-deported” from the United States — despite the fact that American Samoa is a US territory." - Moises Mendoza, Oct. 2, 2012.