November 2022

The legislation’s $369 billion in climate investments provide subsidies for U.S. green industry and offer a hefty consumer tax credit for electric vehicles built in North America. And that’s exactly how it should work, the Democrats say.

“I’m not reopening this law. We’re not going to reopen the text of it,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the Senate’s chief tax and trade lawmaker. He said the legislation was meant to create “more good-paying American jobs.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) also dismissed the chances of Congress amending the law to accommodate automakers based in the EU and other U.S. allies, which want the electric vehicles they make overseas to qualify for the maximum $7,500-a-vehicle tax credit.

Those imported electric vehicles qualified for U.S. clean energy tax credits for years, before Biden signed his prized Inflation Reduction Act. The legislation’s explicit goal was to create more U.S. manufacturing jobs.

“We’d love to have them come and build plants here and then be a part of it,” Stabenow said of the foreign automakers. But “we’re not going to be” changing the law.

Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said European partners “have long engaged in substantial investments in their domestic industries.”

“With the Inflation Reduction Act, we are investing to ensure that America, not China, leads the transition to electric vehicles,” he added.

The brewing fight over U.S. electric vehicle tax credits and other provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act is posing a new threat to transatlantic trade relations not seen since former President Donald Trump was in the White House. Even as Democrats talk up the need for better economic cooperation with allies post-Trump, the EU and other economies with substantial auto industries will be hard-pressed to find a sympathetic ear on Capitol Hill.

Democrats, who will maintain control of the Senate next year, will not want to reopen one of the Biden administration’s greatest legislative achievements. Republicans, set to take narrow control of the House and generally opposed to the broader climate legislation, could be reluctant to push for an amendment at the behest of foreign interests.

Biden has been clear about his support for establishing a U.S. manufacturing base for electric vehicles.

“Just like over the last century, American workers built carburetors. Now American workers are gonna build vehicle batteries in a new clean energy economy,” he said in a speech in Michigan on Tuesday.

The United States and France will issue a joint statement from the Biden-Macron meeting, but barring a major surprise it is not expected to include a breakthrough on Europe’s concerns. Still, the U.S. and EU will continue a bilateral dialogue on the issue that Biden administration officials insist has been “productive,” even though no resolution has emerged yet.

France and other European nations are meanwhile coalescing around their own response. Macron argues that the IRA is “not in line with the rules of the World Trade Organization,” as he put it in early November in France during a meeting with industry representatives.

And French Trade Minister Olivier Becht said the European Union, which sets trade policy for the 27-nation bloc, may resort to “coercive” trade measures if the U.S. doesn’t modify or reinterpret the law so that “European companies benefit from the same conditions as American companies.”

Wyden said Europe only has to look in the mirror, especially when it comes to how the EU has targeted American big tech firms with digital taxation rules.

“If anybody is talking about coercion, what I’ve seen is what they’ve been doing in terms of digital taxes and harming our high-skill, high-wage job sector,” he said. “So if you want to talk about examples, that’ll be the first one that comes to mind.”

The White House has said it is ready to hear Macron out.

“The bottom line for us, is first of all we want to understand the concern,” said White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby. “We’re absolutely willing to have that conversation and to find a way to work through those issues of concern.”

But in the face of what is shaping up to be a clean energy subsidy race, the Biden administration’s line is that there’s no downside to more government support for climate initiatives.

“Our perspective is if you look at the economics of this, if you look at the amount of need around clean energy investments, around renewables investments, around EVs, there’s just a huge amount to be done — and more, frankly, to be done than the market would provide for on its own,” a senior administration official said on a call with reporters.

Former Vice President Al Gore weighed in on the American side Tuesday, telling a POLITICO sustainability summit in Brussels that the EU and other governments should “match what the U.S. has done.”

The numbers on auto trade also hamper the case for the U.S. to amend the law.

In 2021, EU nations, led by Germany, shipped about $22 billion more automobile exports to the U.S. than America sent to Europe.

The EU, as a bloc, also imposes a 10 percent tariff on cars from the U.S. while the U.S. imposes only a 2.5 percent tariff on European car imports. The U.S. auto trade deficit is one reason Trump threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on European autos, although he never followed through on that.

A big breakthrough for Macron would be some kind of concession that allows European companies the same IRA tax benefits as American, Canadian and Mexican companies enjoy. But for now, that seems unlikely.

A French official confirmed they are working with the EU to persuade Biden to make changes, while moving ahead with efforts to forge a “Buy European Act” back home to respond to the increased U.S. competition. “We don’t expect these concessions to be announced soon or during the visit. But it is what we are advocating,” the official said.

In theory, the Treasury Department, which is implementing the law, could come up with an interpretation of the law’s text that allows European vehicles to access the subsidies. But that would surely anger U.S. unions, whose support Biden needs going into reelection. And Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has downplayed the chances of that, saying in October that the law “is what it is.”

Still, Europe is not the only ally that is upset. Both Japan and South Korea are urging the administration to implement the law in a way that minimizes the impact on foreign suppliers who have made investments to build facilities in the United States.

South Korean automaker Hyundai, for example, announced plans in May to invest $5.54 billion to build new electric vehicle and battery manufacturing plants in Georgia that are expected to create 8,100 new full-time jobs.

But that facility won’t begin producing electric vehicles until 2025, so it wants the Treasury Department to either delay implementation of a North American final assembly requirement or provide a waiver for companies that announced investment plans before the new law went into effect.

Toyota, which says it has invested more than $36 billion in U.S. automotive production facilities since 1998, is spending $3.8 billion on a new plant in North Carolina that is expected to create 2,100 jobs building batteries for about 1.2 million vehicles each year. But it also is not expected to become operational until 2025.

The automakers may have more luck on that front with Treasury. “There’s discussions about giving them more time,” Stabenow confirmed on Capitol Hill.

The Treasury Department is expected to issue guidance on how it will implement the new law by the end of the year, providing several more weeks for foreign governments and car companies to lobby the Biden administration on the issue.

Treasury did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Steven Overly and Ari Hawkins contributed to this report.

Say goodbye to mini shampoo bottles.

The EU wants to slash the amount of packaging waste produced across the bloc, banning everything from mini hotel toiletries to throwaway plastic wrapping around some fresh fruit and vegetables.

The proposal is part of the European Commission’s circular economy package, legislation aimed at slashing waste and reducing emissions to help the bloc reach climate neutrality by 2050.

The new rules include mandatory targets for the amount of recycled materials used in plastic packaging and pushes cafés, shops and hotels to switch to reusable, rather than single-use packaging. It calls for all packaging on the EU market to be recyclable by 2030.

Countries will also be told to set up schemes to increase recycling of bottles and cans: Customers would pay a small additional sum on top of their purchase, which is refunded on the bottle’s return.

Packaging is a “key environmental concern,” the Commission said in its preamble to the new rules. The sector is one of the “main users of virgin materials,” hoovering up 40 percent of plastics and 50 percent of paper, and accounting for 36 percent of municipal solid waste.

In 2020, every EU resident generated nearly 180 kilograms of waste, according to new EU data. Paper and cardboard are the main culprit, accounting for 32.7 million tons in 2020, followed by plastic and glass at about 15 million tons each.

“Without action, the EU would see a further 19 percent increase in packaging waste by 2030, and for plastic packaging waste even a 46 percent increase,” according to the Commission.

But its proposal isn’t going down particularly well. Industry groups have pushed back hard against higher reuse targets in recent weeks, while NGOs are accusing the Commission of bowing to those demands and watering down its proposal.

Here are four key points of contention.

End of single-use

One key element of the Commission’s proposal is a ban on some types of single-use packaging in the hospitality sector — such as disposable plates and cups, sugar packets and other condiments, or mini soaps and shampoos.

Businesses won’t let that happen without a fight.

Ever since a first draft of the new rules leaked last month, they’ve been hammering home the argument that the energy and water needed to clean the reusable packaging would outweigh the environmental benefits of moving away from single-use items.

A ban would “require a full cost analysis of businesses in particular energy, water and operational costs,” hospitality lobby HOTREC argued in an emailed statement, adding that the cost of those assessments shouldn’t fall to the businesses.

The rules also set targets for companies to ensure a certain quantity of products are provided in reusable or refillable packaging. For example, 20 percent of takeaway beverage sales made by a café must be served in reusable packaging or using customers’ own containers by 2030, with the target ramping up to 80 percent in 2040. Beer retailers will have to sell 10 percent of their products in refillable bottles by 2030 and 20 percent by 2040.

That’s another sore point for industry.

The Commission should “look at the full life cycle impact of all packaging products,” according to the European Paper Packaging Alliance lobby. It argues that “scientific evidence shows that recyclable, single-use, paper-based packaging has a lower environmental impact than reusable systems, in takeaway settings as well as in quick service restaurants.”

Recycling concerns

Industry groups also complain that the proposal unfairly favors reusable packaging over recyclable single-use packaging, meaning wasted money on investments in recycling facilities — even though the text seeks to boost recycling in the bloc. There’s a minimum amount of recycled content that must be used in the manufacturing of certain plastic packaging, for example.

“There’s a real concern for the industry — we don’t know which horse to back now, because the policy itself has conflicting goals,” said Ian Ellington, senior vice president at Pepsico and president of EU soft drinks lobby UNESDA. “I think the likely outcome of that is we would pause some of those investments while we figure out what the regulatory framework is really going to be.”

Brussels seems to have listened: The rules proposed on Wednesday lay down lower targets on what percentage of packaging must be reusable.

But now environmental groups are sounding the alarm, saying the EU needs to focus on boosting reusable packaging rather than relying on recycling as the solution.

Campaigners have argued that positive messaging around recycling could be promoting additional consumption — and additional waste. They also point out that the average recycling rate is only 64.4 percent.

In rowing back the reuse targets in its current proposal, the EU executive “seems to have fallen into industry’s false promises on investments on recycling,” Larissa Copello, a policy officer for Zero Waste Europe said in an emailed statement.

Death of marketing

The Commission’s proposal would also ban “superfluous” packaging, like double walls or false bottoms aimed at making products appear to contain more than they do.

That essentially means all packaging should be designed for functionality and to minimize the amount of packaging used.

The idea isn’t going down well with businesses that use distinctive packaging to stand out, such as spirits and perfume manufacturers.

In a letter to the Commission, several lobbies argued the new rules will lead to “standardisation of packaging and have negative competitive repercussions for EU consumers, brands and industry.”

“An awful lot of work goes into presenting your products to the market,” said Adeline Farrelly, secretary-general of the association of European manufacturers of glass containers. “The image of your product, the way it looks and feels is a huge part of the value added product.”

Biodegradable packaging in the crosshairs

Compostable and bio-based packaging manufacturers will also have to abide by new rules, as such products can jam up recycling processes and take a long time to fully biodegrade in certain environments.

The Commission has designated a “very small list of products” that should be designed for composting — tea bags, filter coffee pods, sticky labels attached to fruit and vegetables, and lightweight plastic carrier bags — while the rest should go into recycling.

The compostable packaging industry isn’t happy about that, saying it will seriously hamper their business.

The new rules are still “effectively … a ban, or sort of very tight control of what can be composted and what can’t,” said Jack McKeivor, the director of public affairs for compostable packaging company TIPA.

“Why would investors want to invest in it? Why would customers want to buy this stuff if they can’t use it for its originally designated purpose?” he added.

The move would jeopardize the EU’s “current leadership role in the sector” and “freeze” further research and investments into such products, a coalition of bioplastic companies wrote in a letter.

The Commission’s proposal will now be examined by the European Parliament and EU countries, but faces a rocky road ahead — a number of MEPs have already sent a letter to the Commission echoing industry concerns.

Woodward’s eye-opening client list goes on. He represents Trump aide Walt Nauta, another figure of interest to prosecutors investigating the Mar-a-Lago documents, and Ryan Samsel, a prominent Jan. 6 rioter accused of igniting the Jan. 6 breach. He and his law partner — Tip O’Neill-era House counsel Stan Brand — filed a brief on behalf of GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy during the contempt of Congress proceedings against Steve Bannon. And he’s currently representing Peter Navarro, whose criminal trial for defying a Jan. 6 committee subpoena is slated to begin in early 2023.

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Woodward said wryly when a reporter commented on his crushing workload as he entered the courthouse on that Oct. 19 morning.

A few days later, Woodward almost fulfilled his prophecy, when a car collided with the scooter he was driving, sending him to George Washington University hospital. While there, he underwent shoulder surgery. While in recovery, he was wheeled to the delivery room to witness the birth of his fourth child, who is now a month old.

Among a crew known for their big personalities and in-your-face political postures, the mild-mannered Woodward may be the most prolific Trump-world warrior you’ve never heard of. That’s exactly how he prefers it.

Tall, bespectacled and bearded, Woodward stands out in a courtroom packed with clean-cut attorneys and paralegals. In the courtroom, he speaks with the certitude of a lawyer who has done his homework. During breaks, he flits around with the harried demeanor of a man with a daunting roster of high-maintenance clients.

Those who know Woodward say Trumpian figures are drawn to him precisely because he’s what many lawyers who end up in Trump circles are not. He’s neither a bomb-thrower nor a headline-seeker. He’s a law nerd in a world of political operatives. And it’s the separation he has from the Trump loyalty-at-any-cost mentality that’s made him in demand among MAGA figures embroiled in the legal morass that followed Trump since Jan. 6.

“The usual suspects of Trump world are tired and discredited,” one Woodward associate said. “People are lucky to have him. He’s not operating with blinders on.”

Between October 2021 and Sept. 30, 2022, Trump’s Save America PAC shelled out $120,000 to Brand Woodward Law. Prosecutors have raised questions about public news reports suggesting that several Oath Keepers, including Kelly and Connie Meggs, have had legal expenses paid by a group led by Sidney Powell, a former Trump attorney. Woodward and his co-counsel Juli Haller — a Powell ally — declined to publicly indicate whether they had accepted funds from Powell’s group but said they were in compliance with all rules pertaining to potential attorney-client conflicts.

Woodward’s actual politics are a bit of a black box. But what is known suggests someone not exactly of the MAGA mold. He works with Brand, himself a product of the Democratic-run House of the 1980s, and has eschewed overt political commentary. Woodward’s wife, Kristin McGough, is an accomplished criminal defense attorney and counsel to the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, which is focused on reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

Woodward’s still-young career has been bookended by national and international crises. After graduating from Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law in 2008 and clerking for three judges in the Washington, D.C., court system, he joined the big law firm Akin Gump in the throes of the mortgage crisis that tanked the U.S. economy. Brand said the conflicts and strictures of big law firms grated on both of them.

Woodward primarily worked on complex civil litigation — from matters stemming from the financial crisis to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He would remain at Akin Gump until mid-2020 when, as Covid lockdowns gripped the world, he decided to take a chance on Brand, who had been cajoling him to start their own practice focused on congressional and white-collar investigations.

“The world has changed, seemingly overnight,” Woodward wrote in a social media post announcing his decision to leave Akin Gump. “What I know is that at home, with my three young boys, I am resolved to join the fray. … Am I afraid? Yes. But with Stan, I hope to make a difference.”

Prior to his foray into Trump world and Jan. 6 defendants, Brand was known as one of the most aggressive defenders of congressional prerogatives on behalf of Tip O’Neill’s House of Representatives. His expertise in congressional investigations made him in high demand after he left Congress. Scavino became a client of Brand’s prior to his departure from Akin Gump and remained with him after he joined forces with Woodward.

Today, Brand prefers to operate as the architect of legal strategies while his mentees execute those strategies in court. His tutelage has boosted the careers of several prominent attorneys who became high-profile figures during the Trump years. They include Abbe Lowell, who represented Jared Kushner during the Mueller investigation, and Stephen Ryan, who represented ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. He says Woodward may be his best find of the bunch.

“This guy has extraordinary capacity to juggle balls and to understand in depth the legal concepts and issues, and pick them up very quickly,” said Brand.

But there are limits to the skills Woodward possesses and deploys in service of some of the most polarizing figures to face criminal and legal consequences following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Good lawyering can only get a client so far.

Meggs, on Tuesday, became one of the first Americans convicted of seditious conspiracy in more than a decade. And after the verdict came in, a dejected Woodward declined to speak to reporters. “The fight goes on,” he said, an indication of a likely appeal for Meggs, who faces decades in jail.

Woodward also represents Samsel, who charged at police barricades on the early afternoon of Jan. 6, a moment many believe was the trigger point of the entire Capitol breach. He also represents Freddie Klein, a Trump-appointed State Department official who spent hours amid the mob at the most notorious hot spot of Jan. 6 violence, the Lower West Terrace tunnel.

Navarro, meanwhile, stands accused of defying a congressional subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee, which sought to interview him about his effort to derail the transfer of power by working with GOP lawmakers to challenge Joe Biden’s electors. And Scavino, who avoided a contempt of Congress charge despite declining to appear before the Jan. 6 committee, was a prominent surrogate for Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election results and was present for many conversations with Trump in the weeks before Jan. 6.

But whether Woodward feels a moral conflict about the clients he has chosen and the cases he’s arguing is beside the point, Brand said in an interview.

“The fact that it’s Trump is happenstantial. No one I’m aware of has asked us what our political bona fides are,” said Brand. “What they care about is, how do we practice defense? There’s no litmus test for us.”

Brand noted that throughout history, attorneys associated with one party or another have taken high-profile clients who might cut against their politics. Edward Bennett Williams, the treasurer of the DNC in the 1970s, represented mobsters. William Hundley, an ally of Robert Kennedy, went on to represent Watergate clients.

“That’s the slice of life in Washington that has always existed,” Brand noted.

Ryan described Woodward’s success as a relatively simple formula: Strong and persuasive writing, a genuinely likable persona and a willingness to take on polarizing clients, particularly after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

“After 1/6, there was a lot of, I think, reluctance in the white-collar bar to take some of these people,” Ryan said. “I know of lawyers who normally are fearless about taking someone who’s unpopular. I think there was a stigma after 1/6 on some of these people.”

While Trump and his allies are often known to attack the very justice system that will determine their fate, Woodward forged amicable relationships with judges and the prosecutors he litigates against, as has been on display at various moments during the Oath Keepers trial.

A few days after his late-October scooter accident, Woodward returned to the courthouse, right arm in a sling, to resume Meggs’ seditious conspiracy defense. His return was greeted by DOJ and defense attorneys, as well as U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta, with a warm round of applause. On Nov. 14, when Mehta and another Oath Keeper defense attorney debated whether to introduce evidence about his client’s use of the potent pain medication Opana, someone jokingly chimed in, “Mr. Woodward can testify.”

“I would characterize him as an amazingly intelligent man with a deep grasp of the rules of evidence,” said Lee Bright, a Texas-based defense lawyer for Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes. “That, compounded by a commanding presence in the courtroom, results in his being a formidable attorney to have as your advocate.”

Woodward knows he’s playing a tricky hand in some of these cases. Jan. 6 defendants have been almost universally convicted by Washington, D.C., juries, and while jurors are vetted and selected for their pledges to be impartial, defense attorneys have repeatedly raised worries that D.C.’s antipathy for Trump could create an even greater obstacle to an acquittal. Woodward sought to blunt those issues as he appealed to jurors for an acquittal.

“I won’t ask you to agree with Mr. Meggs’ political beliefs, his preference for the president of the United States,” Woodward told the Oath Keepers jury during Nov. 3 arguments. “I will ask you to read, to hear the evidence in this case, the messages, and to decide whether the evidence was a plan, a scheme — something nefarious — or whether, as others have observed, they represent hyperbole, political rhetoric.”

Ultimately, the jury disagreed.

It’s not just his quantity of high-profile clients that has drawn murmurs among fellow lawyers and the reporters who cover the many matters Woodward is involved in. He’s also been tasked with litigating some of the most complex challenges facing Trump world, including Trump’s ability — or lack thereof — to assert executive privilege as an ex-president.

Woodward spent a recent Friday sparring with Mehta over whether a private conversation between Trump and Navarro — with no witnesses but the two men — can be enough to prove Trump attempted to assert the privilege.

Woodward noted that Navarro would be unlikely to testify about the conversation, since doing so would waive his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. Mehta noted that there was one other person Woodward could call to vouch for Navarro’s version of the conversation.

“I don’t want to do that,” Woodward replied, describing Trump as a witness “who I don’t want to be involved in the process.”

Woodward’s allies say it’s not lost on him that his work on these matters, though, could reverberate across history — that a man in a sling who spends his limited spare time constructing Lego sets with his kids could shape the contours of presidential power.

It’s a remarkable place for Woodward to be. And one others didn’t imagine for him. Ryan noted that Woodward has been in contention for a D.C. Superior Court judgeship, selected in November 2020 by the district’s Judicial Nominating Commission as a finalist for a presidential nomination to fill a vacancy. But given the trajectory of his career and his decision to take on a raft of polarizing clients, he said it’s unclear whether that path will materialize again.

“These things do mark you,” Ryan said. “Life is never the same after you do these kinds of things.”

The story of the men’s journey underscores the lengths that Russian migrants will undertake to escape orders to fight in Ukraine — just as the Biden administration weighs expanding its policy for Russians’ access to the U.S. refugee program as tens of thousands flee the war to the United States.

Curtis Silook was harvesting ducks with his children along the coast of Gambell, an Alaskan village on the tip of St. Lawrence Island, when a fishing boat landed a few hundred yards in front of his home on Oct. 3. When he saw it being dragged onto shore by a bulldozer, he assumed it was residents preparing for a storm.

He was wrong. Only when his father, who lives in Anchorage, called Silook inquiring about news reports did he realize: Two Russians fleeing Putin’s draft had successfully landed by his doorstep.

“I remember their clothing being wet, and the first thing being that we should get them somewhere dry and get them fed,” said Silook, the city clerk, who helped after learning who they were. They asked the Gambell residents if they’d be safe there.

A week before, Russian authorities had knocked on Sergey and Maksim’s front doors in Egvekinot, a village with a few thousand residents on the coast of Siberia, their lawyer said. That’s been standard practice ever since Putin enacted a nationwide mobilization in September, essentially a draft order, that has sent scores of untrained and ill-equipped men into battle against Ukraine and caused others to flee their homes.

Knowing what the authorities wanted, the men — both in their 30s — didn’t answer. The pair often posted about their opposition to the government on social media, and at least one of them is known to be a supporter of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, McKee said. Joining the invasion was not an option.

Instead, Sergey and Maksim fled to a medium-sized fishing boat, which they used to travel nearly 300 miles, coasting south of the village along the northeast peninsula.

When they landed in Gambell, members of the 700-person village rallied around the visitors, and gave them food and shelter in the local public safety building, Silook said. The next afternoon, the Coast Guard flew Sergey and Maksim off the island for processing.

For the past two months, the two men have been detained in the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma while McKee works for their release.

“It’s a horrible and awful process,” he said, adding that one of the men left behind a family. “When you travel so long, and you’re working through a lot at home, and then you get put into what’s basically a prison and told it’s not a prison — it’s not great.” For years, human rights groups have documented mistreatment and medical negligence at immigration detention facilities across the United States.

ICE said in an emailed statement that the agency is committed to the welfare of those in custody and that it “continuously reviews” its detention processes to ensure they’re humane.

Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Russians began fleeing to neighboring European countries like Poland and Hungary, and in fewer numbers, to the U.S., with many coming in through the southern border. More than 21,000 Russians were processed by U.S. authorities at the border in the 2022 fiscal year, compared with just over 450 in 2020.

In October alone — when Sergey and Maksim arrived — over 3,800 Russians came.

The mass exodus has left U.S. officials at embassies worldwide and along the southern border scrambling, as POLITICO reported in May. Some lawmakers and activists urged President Joe Biden to roll out a welcome mat for fleeing Russians, arguing that the gesture would send a powerful signal of U.S. generosity to ordinary Russians and undermine Putin’s oppressive regime by accelerating brain drain from his country.

When asked if there’s any update to the administration’s migration policy, a State Department spokesperson said that officials are aware of the influx of Russians fleeing the country, but deferred asylum questions to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The day after he left the Gambell, Sergey emailed Silook, asking for help finding a place to stay. That’s the last the city clerk heard from him. But Silook has been in touch with Pastor Roman Mitin at My Home Church in Tacoma, who said his organization will sponsor the pair.

When there’s a room available at the church’s house, “we have them stay, make sure they get on record with ICE. Then they get a driver’s license and all the documents they need to start” living in the United States, Mitin said, explaining that he is checking for availability this week.

Back in Gambell, residents are on alert for more dissidents coming across the strait, though none have arrived yet. However, three weeks before Sergey and Maksim arrived, remnants of a life raft with gear in it washed up on shore. Silook believes it could have been a different attempt by the same men, another refugee trying to make the journey, or simply debris from a hunting boat.

“Every time the seas are calm, we’re looking out toward the ocean,” he said. “Just in case.”