This story has been updated to clarify Vlad's medical condition.
On a Friday in late June, immigration agents detained Vlad, a Russian asylum seeker who’d been living and working in Tucson. (AZPM is not using his last name at the request of his wife, for fear of retribution.)
Now, as he remains detained in a Florence ICE facility, the 23-year-old faces another obstacle: a possible case of measles.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed this week that seven people had contracted the disease within the Florence Detention Center. It's unclear whether that includes Vlad.
Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva released a statement Wednesday, noting her office had received information that Vlad was among the individuals who'd been infected. Since then, however, AZPM has been unable to confirm an official diagnosis, though Vlad described symptoms including coughing and congestion in a phone call that his wife shared with AZPM.
Vlad also told his wife he was quarantined amid the measles outbreak at the Florence Detention Center.
AZPM reported on Vlad last month, after ICE agents detained him at the Tucson ICE Field Office. In an interview at the time, his wife, Andrea Landavazo, said she feared he’d be deported to Russia — where President Vladimir Putin’s regime is actively drafting men to fight in the war against Ukraine.
“I even told one of the (ICE) officers … ‘you know he’s going to get drafted, right?’” Landavazo said.
Multiple measles outbreaks##
In a statement Wednesday, Grijalva called on ICE to delay deportation proceedings for Vlad and other people affected by the measles outbreak, “so that they are able to pursue all legal avenues, which will inevitably be delayed by this outbreak.”
The congresswoman, who’s made several unannounced visits to detention centers in recent months, has sharply criticized conditions within the ICE facilities.
“For ICE to say this is the ‘best healthcare’ these individuals have ever received while simultaneously presiding over a measles outbreak at one of its own facilities demonstrates how willfully blind or blatantly indifferent the agency is to the inhumane conditions right under its nose,” she said Wednesday.
Deaths have also surged in ICE detention facilities under the second Trump administration, according to federal data. In 2025, ICE recorded 33 deaths — the highest rate in years, marking a threefold increase from 2024. So far in 2026, 20 people have died in ICE custody.
ICE, for its part, has defended its healthcare practices.
“(Detainees) get better care than some people in our poorest communities in some of our states,” former Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said at a border security conference in Phoenix this spring. “And the immigration health service workforce, they're out there day-to-day taking care of these individuals in our charge.”
In a statement to AZPM, an ICE spokesperson said the Florence facility has suspended all in-person visitation other than attorney-client appointments. The spokesperson said medical staff are continuing to monitor the outbreak “and will take appropriate and active steps to prevent further infection.”
A case of measles was reported at the same detention center in January of this year.
A missed court date: ‘He just got confused’##
Vlad arrived in the United States four years ago to seek asylum. He was 19 years old at the time.
He presented himself at a port of entry along the border — a standard step in the asylum seeking process — and a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent paroled him into the country with a notice to appear in court, according to a statement from ICE.
As his immigration case progressed in Tucson, he worked overnight shifts stocking merchandise at Walmart. Then, earlier this year, he missed one of his court dates.
“His hearing was rescheduled a couple times, so he just got confused on the appointment,” Landavazo said.
An immigration judge then ordered Vlad to be removed from the country. In an attempt to remedy the error, Vlad filed a motion to reopen his case, but it was denied. Then, Vlad filed a motion to reconsider, driving to the ICE Tucson Field Office last month to submit the paperwork. There, agents detained him.
“I was just in shock,” his wife said, recalling the moment when he called from ICE custody. “And the only thing I (could) think of to say was, like, ‘I love you.’”
