Ads by Google Ads by Google

Update: Stateless man in American Samoa

Last December, Mikhail Sebastian decided to take a New Year's trip to American Samoa, but when he tried to board his flight to return home to Los Angeles, he was barred. U.S. immigration officials said he had self-deported.Weekends on All Things Considered talked with Sebastian, stateless and stranded, this fall. Born in the former Soviet Union bloc, he escaped and made his way to the U.S., where he had been living and working for 16 years. He had a work permit, but as a stateless person, he was not allowed to travel outside the U.S. He had no problems visiting the territories of Guam and Puerto Rico, but found American Samoa had its own immigration rules.We caught up with him recently to find out if anything had changed. It hadn't. He's still living in limbo on the island.\Since the first interview we had back in October