Brad Harrison on a Ukrainian Refugee's Plight
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We have kind of a special show for you today and maybe a little bit of a heart-rending opening to this program, more so than usual, Chuck. Yes. On the line with us today, Brad Harrison, his daughter Sophia. Sophia's mom, Brad's wife, could not be with him. And we're going to let you, Brad, we're going to let you begin by telling us why your wife, Anna, is not with you and her daughter today. Okay.

fleeing from Ukraine. Yeah, thanks for having us on, really. It's kind of a difficult time for us right now. It's a very long story. It started over a year ago. We came to the USA after I quit my job in Dubai. I'd been there for 13 years. And she was on a 10-year visit visa at the time, and they canceled it.

Mainly, it started due to the COVID situation. We didn't know that they were not taking in visitors at the time. And then also they thought that we were immigrating at the time. And they had no sympathy at all about us just coming for a visit and trying to figure things out and migrating.

still going through any legal process that was necessary. We would have left the country again, you know, if it was necessary to do that. But they had zero sympathy. They canceled her visa. And I had to book a flight immediately from the airport for my wife and daughter to fly to Ukraine. I then spent... And, Brad, your wife is a Ukrainian citizen, right?

Correct. Yeah. So immediately the next day after flying them back out, I went and secured a lawyer and started the processing for her immigration. And after I did that, I flew to Ukraine to be with my family. I tried to keep them together, all of us together for the last year. So I'd spend 90 days in Ukraine and then another 90 in USA because that's all I could do in Ukraine. And and then, you know,

you know immigration processing going uh waiting for all of that approval and then the war starts uh I left about 10 days prior uh because my 90 days up in Ukraine uh came forth and uh

I went, well, we just didn't think that, obviously, I don't think, you know, especially anybody in the heart of Ukraine thought that Russia was going to carpet bomb their city. So let me stop you there for a minute. Let me stop you there for a minute. So you're in Ukraine. You leave 10 days before the war breaks out.

Was the filling on the ground because your wife's Ukrainian, so you're not a tourist, you're not at the local hotel. Did people not believe this was going to happen? Yeah, I'd say a good 90% of the people in Kharkov, there were some that were pretty frightened and leaving, but you really didn't know which side to believe. And we knew a lot of, I know a lot of the history about what's going on in Ukraine and Donetsk and Lugansk to the east.

of us was the regions under play. And we were, you know, obviously, I think most people just thought that if it was going to get bad, it would get bad there worse first, and then they would have time to leave. But it didn't happen like that. As you know, it was, well, Ana and Sofia, they were in our apartment,

And it all just started one morning at 5 a.m. And it didn't let up day and night bombing in our neighborhood for three days and nights. And they couldn't go anywhere. My wife, it would be February 27th in the morning. She sensed a pause in the bombings and, you know, being kind of prepared to leave, she

drove around the city collecting her mother, 70 years old, and my 25-year-old stepson, separate apartments. My brother-in-law and sister joined. Their house was bombed, probably not existing now. They joined. So in two cars, they...

Left the city as the Russian troops were taking over the streets. And I think that they got out within minutes because I'm seeing videos on YouTube of streets where they would have been on that day. And it was actual, you know, battle going on. What city was it? Sophia. What city was this again, Brian? Brad, I mean. Park of.

Yeah, they pronounce it kind of incorrectly on all the news. They say Kharkiv, but it's Kharkiv. It's K-H-A-R-K-I-V. It's the second largest city. It's in the northeast. Our apartment was about 15 miles away from the Russian border. So it's a big city, about one and a half million people. And...

You know, it used to be the capital of Ukraine prior to USSR breaking up. A lot of architecture, you know, a lot of history to it. So people were thinking that, you know, back to you asking what people thought, people were just thinking that the Russians and Putin loved the city and probably wouldn't destroy it because they wouldn't want to destroy that.

But they escaped the bombings.

in Kharkiv and then they drove for about six days through Ukraine, going around different cities that were being bombed. They were in forests and on back roads and staying at friends of friends of friends' houses that would help out. And finally made it to the border of Romania. We had some friends in Romania that were saying, come to us. And well, the men are still in Ukraine.

And the women got out and they had to split up. Some went to Germany, some went to Sweden. It's been a crazy time. So explain to us again, explain to our audience again, how did they get out of Ukraine? You're saying they went to different countries. How did they do it? Did they take a train? Was it just car? What did they do? Well, luckily I bought a car, you know, a couple months before. We were thinking we'd be there for a while waiting for this immigration processing. So I

I secured an apartment and bought a car and that's how they did it. Some people were leaving by train, but lucky they had a car because trains were packed. If you see any of the YouTube videos on people leaving the trains, there's just chaos. You can even hear gunshots, people trying to get on board. Of course, probably not happening right now, but back at the time that they were leaving.

So, yeah, luckily, cars, we had luckily enough gas to get far out of the city at the time. They were only giving them five gallons at a time. My my brother in law, he tried to leave the city a couple of days later and it took him 14 hours to fill up his car. I'm not kidding. Yeah. Wow. It was. Where's he at? Where's he at? Where's your brother in law at now?

my brother-in-law uh his name's stas uh he and his family their building was bombed uh we're we're all kind of in this uh neighborhood called salt of against in the northwest part of harkin and it's 300 to 400 000 people in this neighborhood uh but uh probably i'd i'd guess 80 90 of all those buildings have been bombed um he left and he's in

in a small village, at least far away from the city we know of. But, you know, he doesn't speak any English. A lot of these people, some of my relatives don't speak any English. That's why they decided to stay because it's just, you know, they're just hoping for a peace or a truce or whatever. Just, you know, their life is there. So they have to just survive and

and go back to whoever owns the place after, if that makes sense. So, Anna and Sofia, where did you guys go? Once you leave Ukraine, where did you go? We went to... First, we went to Romania. And then we started... We went to...

Mexico and then we came here. But then my mom wasn't allowed to come home. So Ana's now in Mexico. You went to Mexico. Is it Tijuana? No. Okay. Actually, let me just correct that. So we've had a lot of support from senators before doing this. So I've got letters from Senator Mike McKell, the offices of Mike Lee, Mitt Romney,

they are all aware and we had support from their office about, you know, doing what we did and even

the offices sent emails to the Customs and Border Patrol before we tried to cross to say, hey, we've got this family, they're driving this vehicle, they're going to be there at this time. We recommend that you give Anna humanitarian parole. We'll figure out everything with her immigration processing, which, by the way,

her i-130 visa processing was actually the first portion of it approved uh and i got it the morning that they were leaving romania um but uh you know

With all the news that was out, the Biden administration was going to accept 100,000 refugees. Joe Biden on March 11th said something to the effect, we will welcome the refugees with open arms if they can make it to the border. All this went into our decisions of, do I have my family still in Romania or somewhere in Europe? Well, possibly not.

you know World War III breaks out and uh no I'm I'm not if if they're going and I saw YouTube videos and other news stories of other Ukrainians getting in so uh my decision of course was well why wouldn't they let my wife in also you know she's not a criminal and uh we'll work it out but uh

But no, we got to the border. We drove up. They took us into a secondary area and they took her back to a building for about 10 minutes. She came back crying her eyes out and telling us that they were going to take her. And mostly probably because she had a canceled visit visa.

A year ago, they wouldn't look at any of our documents. They wouldn't even let her take documents. She took, I think, one change of clothes. She wanted to take documents, but they told her that it wouldn't do any good anyway. Who is that? Who is they, by the way? Is this the Mexican authorities? Is the U.S. authorities? Who is that? What? No, no.

No, we're not dealing with Mexican authorities at all. This is our own American customs. Okay, so it's U.S. authorities. They take her back, one change of clothes. Your documents expire. We're not going to look at anything else that you have. Is that correct? Yes. Basically, in her passport, there was a sticker that said her visit visa had been canceled, and I think once they saw that,

Just immediate criminal, you know, and they wouldn't look at any support letters. They wouldn't look at the printed out emails that I had from Senator Mike Lee and Mitt Romney's office. They wouldn't really. They didn't. They took her phone. It's, you know, she's not been able to call out. It's been.

88 hours now so it's been three hour three days 16 hours Brad I'm gonna have to stop you there we have to go to break here in just a few seconds we're gonna bring you back on for the next segment to continue uh I I really want to know what's happening here Chuck yeah this is mind-boggling breaking battlegrounds we'll be right back

Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Horne of Sam's Zone. Today, we have a real story. We have with us Brad Harrison and his daughter, Sophia. Brad is married to a Ukrainian woman. Him and his daughter were able to get past the Mexico border. Brad is a U.S. citizen. Anna was taken by U.S. border and customs. That's where we left off at the break. So,

Brad, you went out. She comes out. She's in tears. They let her take one pair of clothes. They take her cell phone. When's the last time you heard from her? It's been three days and 16 hours ago, so about 88 hours ago. So what are they saying? Do they know where she's at? I'll give you a twist here. About 10 minutes before this podcast, my lawyer got an email from CBP saying that they didn't have her in their system.

And my lawyers are already checked with ICE and they confirmed that they do not have her in the system. So essentially, and that's what I was just telling Senator McKell, that they've lost her. This whole thing is stunning. So what does that mean? I mean, is she in U.S. custody there? I mean, what does that mean? They lost her.

Well, she would have to be somewhere in their system. Like I was saying before, this has nothing to do with Mexican authorities. We just drove right through Mexico and everything fine. This all happened at U.S. Customs Border Patrol. And the last time I saw her was walking into their building.

So what I know, OK, Sam, go ahead. Well, I mean, I mean, first off, we've been talking a lot about the border on this program lately. And one of the conditions for automatic entry under asylum request is being a Ukrainian citizen right now. Yeah, we don't understand. Yeah. I mean, this is really going against everything they're saying. You know, you can come up with a cartel.

paid to get smuggled through the border and they're letting you in, but they're not letting this family be reunited. This is baffling. Do you know any other Ukrainian family members or friends who are down in Mexico who can't get across either? No, I don't know anybody personally, but I saw...

on a lot of news stories and a lot of youtube videos uh people from ukraine getting across i was at the tijuana airport and kind of made friends with a guy from massachusetts uh to

He was originally Kazakhstan and American citizen now, but he was there on the church function helping Ukrainians. And while we were talking, there was 200 or 300 people that came through. They welcomed and they were going to take them to the border. He said that they've been doing it for the last week, taking them to the border, advising them what to say. And they had church members or just citizens on the other side accepting them and helping them out. So they're crossing.

But yet my wife is being treated like this mastermind criminal that they finally caught. Why do you why do you why do you think that is? I have no idea. She has no criminal background. I don't have a criminal background. And, you know, baffling her visitors visa, according from what you said, was just canceled due to covid because they weren't allowing people in at that time. Is that right?

Mainly, that's what started it all. Yeah. You know, they started questioning and then they started, you know, thinking, oh, OK, so you're you're coming here to immigrate. And, you know, we said, well, actually, we're just coming here on a visit to decide what we're going to do. And we'll do whatever it needs to be. You're an American citizen. She's entitled to immigrate here. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And we've been married.

10 years. You know, we have a U.S. citizen daughter together. Sophia, how are you doing? I'm doing good, but I'm still pretty sad because she got with us. I'm pretty scared because I don't know if she's okay. I don't know where she is. I don't know what's happening. So, Brad, what are your next steps? What are you trying to do now?

uh there's so many angles that uh you know but i'm getting roadblocks everywhere um uh senators offices like you heard i was on the phone uh i'm trying to get people to call uh governor cox of utah uh his phone lines trying to blow that up to show that uh you know we've somebody needs to do something could we get some support that way um um

I don't know. I want to go down to the building again and just see if I can, you know, rattle some chains, but it was pointless the last time we were there. There's no access. They don't have a desk, for example. There's no website. There's no way to call in. They just tell you, oh, well, Google the number, and you Google it and call it, and it's a roundabout, you know, recording that gets you nowhere. So my...

This is where my lawyer learned that they don't know where she's at. She tried to file a G-28, which is essentially a form that says that you're representing someone. When she got that back, that's where they said, we don't have her in our system. This was only, you know, 45 minutes ago.

So, you know, I don't know about legalities, but and the actual terminology, the actual written laws. But I was told that 72 hours is usually maximum, even like a hardened criminal gets to call somebody or get legal counsel within 72 hours. And, you know, the U.S. Constitution falls in line and supports my wife right now because she's on U.S. soil.

Wow. I'm speechless, Chuck. Yeah, I just don't even know what to ask. I mean, I'm sort of stunned by the whole thing, especially when we say we're bringing in 100,000 Ukrainians. Well, and when being a citizen from Ukraine is defined at the moment as clear grounds for immediate entry asylum. Yes, yes. And it's a far more legitimate grounds than anything else out there in the world right now.

This and you're talking about someone who's been married to an American for 10 years. This just screams government incompetence. Brad, what can people do who are listening to help you?

Uh, right now that I could, uh, call governor Cox, uh, is governor, is governor Cox the right one? It's not, it's not Lee. And I mean, don't Senator Lee and Romney have more sway in this than a governor? I would say, uh, you know, call them all, uh,

We we try to add to that for all of our listeners in Arizona, in Florida, around the country. Call your governor, call your reps, your federal representatives, call your senators, call your congressmembers. Ask them about this case, because this is this is stunning and wrong. Yeah. Yeah. We we don't know where she's at. Can you imagine? No. I mean, it's four days now.

Sophia is just learning this. I didn't tell her before this podcast that we don't know where she's at. So it's, she's okay. Yeah, it's, how can they do this? Really? You know, it's like a simple thing to make a phone call from someone there to just tell me something.

Brad, I apologize. We're coming to the end of this segment here. I thank you for being on the program today and for sharing this story with us. Folks, we're going to have some information on our website and on all our social media, how you can potentially help this family. Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be back in just a moment.

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