Pound Pup Legacy

Mitrohina was born in 1978 in Russia with deformities on her hands and feet that she says her parents could not accept. After shuttling in and out of public institutions as a child, her parents put her up for adoption when she was 14.

She was adopted by a couple in Sonoma County, California, soon after, but did not have an easy transition to life in the United States. And although her parents applied for her to receive citizenship, a combination of bureaucratic delays and legal missteps left Mitrohina without it.

In 2005, the prenatal clinic where she’d been receiving care made house visits and diagnosed Mitrohina with postpartum depression and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of her deeply troubled childhood.

She was arrested in June 2007 for abusing her son. Her child was temporarily put in foster care, and the Family Court in Sonoma County agreed that it would be in the child’s best interest to return home if Mitrohina completed a short jail sentence and six-month probation. The terms of her probation required that she enroll in parenting and anger-management classes, seek counseling and begin a course of medications to manage her depression.

Two days after Mitrohina’s sentencing, she found that ICE had put a hold on her record. She had been added to the long and steadily growing queue of non-citizens slated for deportation.

ICE detainer prohibits her from completing her probation to regain custody of her son and deportation is now a near certainty.

Home state: California

Country of origin: Russian Federation

Status: pending

Case File	Report Date
When An Immigrant Mom Gets Arrested	2008-08-01