VIENNA, Austria — 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.
Now the part-time travel agent and barista is stuck on the 76-square-mile island as federal and local officials hash out what to do with him. Though the local government is putting him up with a local family and giving him a $50 weekly allowance, Sebastian can’t work under American Samoan laws and can’t travel off the island.
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Most days, he can be found at the local McDonald’s using an internet connection to post online appeals, while drawing the sympathy of doting locals, who have been circulating petitions to get him back home. He’s living a sweaty Pacific island version of “The Terminal,” the movie in which Tom Hanks plays a traveler who loses his citizenship and is stuck in an airport.