The Pencil Factory

Story. On February twenty. 2025, under the cover of darkness. The plane took off from Yuma, Arizona. According to the humanitarian group Human Rights Watch, this plane was full of men, women, and children that were all flown to Costa Rica, a place where none of them was free. A place that some of them had never even heard of. I miss from Washington.

Listening to Snap Judgment, a special episode. We're calling the Pencil Factory. things that will soon become clear. I remember getting these news that this plane was landing in Costa Rica and it was bringing some deportees. This is Jose Cayaso. He goes by Calla. I live in San Jose, Costa Rica, born and raised. Actually it was two planes that uh arrived from the United States, about two hundred people total, and then they were just put on buses and then ferried off to

Somewhere in Costa Rica. They were going to be detained close to the Panama border, which is this really remote part of the country I had never been to. And nobody what type of deportees they were, right? Are are they are they criminals? been claimed? Are they illegal immigrants? Are they Costa Rican? Well we'll figure it out no, th th they aren't Costa Ricans. They're mostly from Asian countries China, Turkey, Afghanistan, so okay, but what's that about?

had to go out there um and and see what was happening. And here I was a Costa Rican. If someone's gonna cover this story here now quickly, uh who else? So I I planned as quickly as I could to drive out there one or two weekends after I heard the news. It's maybe what a seven hour drive from San Jose? I brought along two journalists, uh two friends of mine. We arrived there Late afternoon, maybe three or four PM

We parked on the side of the highway and we just got out of the car in this blasting heat by the way. This is this is ninety-five degree weather. It's a hundred percent humidity. And then we saw it on the side of the road, this blue sign, huge white letters. It said Katem. Rust is what I remember. It's a rusty fence, a rusty roof, uh this old and faded building, overgrown grass in front of it. CATAM stands for Centro de Atención de Migrantes.

Pencil factory or used to be a pencil factory. It was actually owned by Fabo Castel. And according to a Costa Rican newspaper, it was donated by this German company to the Costa Rican government to be used. For medical attention. as a shelter for migrants on their way north. And part of the agreement when Faber Castel donated this pencil factory was that it was supposed to be used as that, as a place to help. Not as a place to hold people.

The first thing I figured we could do is just scout the place. Um so I had brought my drone with me and I take off on the drone. We get this bird's eyed view of this huge compound. We don't see a lot of people. They're probably all inside. I can see some laundry hanging from the fence, kind of drying out. The only group of people I saw was kind of walking towards this corner of the compound and then I kind of see him through this hole in the fence and just getting to the jungle.

Two or three minutes later, that exact group of three people just walk past me as I'm still flying the drone. They're wearing a white t shirt and white cross. But it isn't clear to me if they're South American, if they're if they're refugees or migrants that are using They just continue walking. But from the drone I had seen this other group that was about two hundred yards out from the side of the fence, and maybe that's who we go and talk to.

So we brought this cardboard sign and this big Sharpie. And we walk to the fence on the side of the highway. And I just stood there between the highway and Katem, just holding this sign, waiting for people to see it.

we could see people kind of in the distance, right? Sitting around in the shades, just trying to cover themselves from the sun. We can see a couple of people kind of walking around the this big wall. Quietly, we hold up this sign for like two or three minutes and then suddenly s someone sees it and they start approaching us. So this small group approached us, maybe three or four people, including one woman with dark hair and and cut off jeans, covering her face with a piece of paper.

And the first thing she says is no cameras, no cameras. The no cameras thing was uh the first surprise. You know, was kind of like the first reflection that they were actually scared. I guess the question is, why are they scared?

Border. down but I kept recording. At least we could pick up some audio of what was about to happen. And now do you do you wanna go home or do you wanna stay here? The woman I was talking to was Russian. Russian, Russia, Russian. Russian. Uh I call, I call? Thank you. And That's when I met German. Hello. Hello. Hello. How do you do? We're from uh from a local press. Okay, I I understand. So German was This tall Russian guy who was wearing this plaid shirt. Thick muscles.

Some tattoos in his arms. We asked Palace Salom into the United States and uh against our will, without signing any papers, they transported us here. They're not illegal immigrants. They're not criminals either. They were trying to find asylum in the US, which means they were in danger in their home countries. Which

was completely different from what we had thought, right? At w at this point we we had expected them to be to have broken the law in some way to end up stuck in this pencil factory in the middle of nowhere. But before I could ask another question, I see the police approaching. We don't know if we're gonna be arrested. We're not sure if we're ever gonna be able to talk to them again, so I just wrote my phone number on a piece of paper and handed it off to them.

And then the police arrive. And they kind of stand at the very edge of the fence. blocking our conversation with the migrants. Okay They get our IDs, they write down our names. But in the end, they just tell us that we can't talk to them and that we need to go. So we just walk back to our car. So after the police sends us off, we've been standing in the heat and we see this bar about a hundred yards down the highway.

And it's not a bar in the way you would understand a bar looks like. This is more like a shack in the middle of nowhere. A beer sounds like a great idea. We walk out there and So as we're sitting down for a beer, I check my phone and there's a text. It says Hello, got your number, will share it with everybody just in case. My name is German. The first thing that surprises me is okay, they have phones and they have internet. German starts sending me photos and videos that he's captured.

Katem looks like this just big old empty warehouse. There's this like metal ceiling, which immediately makes me think how hot it must be in there. So many kids. You see kids in this like playground area, colorful mats, uh surrounded by this small fence. No toys, just some mats. There's this crowded cafeteria. Honestly, it's not so different from what you would imagine uh jail looks like inside.

It suddenly felt like, well, this is it. We've we've found our story. Cause I don't think that at this point anybody understood what was happening. get them. This is already and we set out to do we have contact with someone inside. And at this point, I have so many questions. So why are they here? Why were they sent here? How was that journey?

And these are questions that German is probably not gonna be able to answer over text. And then I remember The hole in the fence that I saw from the drone. them, do you know about this hole in the fence? Would you be willing to use it to come and talk to me? Huh? You don't have to speak to the camera, you can you can talk to you. It must have been around six thirty seven. It was pouring rain, like the one of the worst rains I've ever had to deal with.

Yeah he just kind of appeared he was writing his You wanna say your name for the camera just so so we can have it down again? Okay, my name is Smirnov German Germanovich. Oh Smirnov German Germanovich. I am Russian, but my name is German. Thank you man. Thank you very much. I think he was very nervous at first. I remember he was speaking fast. When we bought uh tickets from Russia to Turkey and uh

Uh then to Mexica they told us that they will be very hard to get into Mexica right now. That uh many uh So he had fled Russia with his wife and his six year old son They took all of their savings, they sold all of their things, and they flew to Mexico. And they did the process through the Customs and Border Protection app. They had gotten an interview, and they were waiting in Mexico for about eight months.

for that interview to happen. Just a few days before the interview was scheduled, he was canceled. So in their complete desperation, they drove to the border near San Diego and presented themselves To the immigration officer and requested asylum. But the timing of that could not have been worse.

Uh when we came to the border, uh a supervisor, I think, a woman, uh asked us why we came here. I told her we uh came here to ask about political asylum. She told We've got new presidents, we don't keep political asylum It was January 2025. Trump had just come into office and he put a stop to all asylum requests. Stranding tens of thousands of people like Germany. And this was devastating to him'cause he had made plans, he knew people in the US, he had a job lined up in California

He had shipped his stuff there. And uh then they put us into the cell. Uh the temperature was very cold. So German and his family were taken to the Otai Mesa detention center. He told me he was separated from his wife and his son and sent with other men. He was put in a cell with up to fifteen other people. They they had to sleep on the floor. There was a toilet in the middle of the room. The light was always on. He was very poorly fed. He mentioned that he lost a lot of weight.

They were only allowed to shower every three or four days. Guards would mock them and insult them. We are shocked about how they treated us. Uh and uh Uh thankfully we're still alive. He wanted to talk a lot about this, like I think this pain was very recent for him, uh when'cause you know, he had been there the week before, right, or two weeks before.

In the 25th of February, they woke up at 3am, put everyone in handcuffs, but they told us that we are going to the military. And after thirty one days they were put in handcuffs, put in a bus and shipped out. They had no idea where. They were sent to an airport and put in a plane. They told us you all go into Costa Rica. You want it or you don't want it, they lie to us. I was like crouched, like like shrinking and like like with a hunchback.

uh in the chair just sitting next to him and and listening to his story. You know, w what do you do? I guess, you know I don't want to say I'm a journalist, but at least I was wearing a journalist hat. in that interview. Like how do you react? Like what do you do? Uh how do you how do you make them feel better? And I'm I'm I'm really sorry. But like why are you what are you sorry for? You you did nothing bad.

Your government did nothing but they're in there you know uh uh they cannot re say no to United States We know that how politic works. They cannot. This is uh the most powerful country in the world. And uh they um know how to make their business German is right. Costa Rica is Such a small country. Our economy is so dependent on the US for export and for tourism. This was before the tariffs announcement came out, so everybody was kind of on edge on some form of political retaliation from the US.

and I walk with you as you go I wanna walk with you through like I know and to be little and so maybe after sitting with German for two hours, I asked him if he could take me to the hole. It had stopped raining and as we walk through the jungle and and we get to the hole in the fence and and German walks in, my first thought is What the hell am I doing here?

Am I the right person to document this? Am I the right person to to tell the world what US immigration and also the Costa Rican government has done to this asylum seeker? I see him kinda like far off into the darkness of Katem, and we just stand there trying to get some shots, because this is obviously the way I want to start my YouTube video about this.

There is only one word for what's happening here: dystopian. Because this is what we had to do to capture the story of the 200 detainees that the Trump Reported to our country. So I get back to San Jose after another six hour road trip back and basically the next one and a half to two weeks is you know, working eight PM through one in the morning every day to try and get this story cut into a decent video.

I have to do this in my own time because this is not my job. My job is is running a tech startup that also happens to make some YouTube videos about tech. When I first told my team that I felt there was a great story here What they told me is like that doesn't really belong in our channel and and they're right about it. So this is a video that I had to put in my personal YouTube channel. It doesn't have a lot of subscribers. It's it's basically been abandoned for three or four years.

We just want uh to f make an attention to this situation because uh maybe it can help us and other people in our condition in the future. So German's interview was we of course the biggest part of the video.

Because people were able to connect with German. Thanks a lot for watching. This story is bound to change a lot. It's it's an evolving story, but I wanted to give you a glimpse of what's happening today. I don't make a lot of videos on this channel, but I appreciate the subscription and if you're I'm really sad when a video that I make underperforms. Uh and this video absolutely underperformed for me.

I don't know how many views the video has today. I haven't checked. Ten thousand ten thousand people. Like I I chase this story because I think it's it's a it's a million view story. Something about the story and the way I put it together. maybe wasn't exciting enough or I don't know. There's also so much terrible stuff happening in the world that I don't know if uh, you know, two hundred deportees in in the middle of nowhere in Costa Rica is relevant enough of a story.

That's where it ends. Like that's where the story ends. I have a job to do, I have a family to get back to, but only a few days after the video went live, German sends me another video. Hi Kaya, how are you? Uh I've got an interesting thought. I escaped one prison to get to another. What for? I don't know. And then another one. And keeps texting me. Hope dies last and uh everything that I do I do with the hope that it will help me What what else can I do?

He texting me cause he he thinks it can help? Maybe he just needs somebody to talk to. We are exchanging with our videos, exchanging with our audios. I've got some reason. На мек десь дай юсфу. When we return. is not done with Kaya. Welcome back to Snapchat. A YouTuber and tech entrepreneur in San Jose, Costa Rica. To cover a story that no one else has. Two hundred people were flown in from the U.S. many of whom had been seeking asylum. Costa Rica. An old pencil factory.

in the Costa Rican jungle. You, one of these detainees, a Russian man named Jeremy. Kaya put up a video with their Expecting a huge response. There wasn't one. So I I know I've become a bit of a lifeline for German. I talk to him more than I talk to many of my friends, and as the reality of their situation sinks in, the fact that he and his family are truly stuck here, he's sharing all these really complicated feelings with me.

The feelings every day are the same. A lot of stress, a lot of worries, a lot of fighting with despair. We're still waiting, but what we are waiting for we don't know. German is usually shirtless in the videos that he sends me. It's me. Sorry for being naked because it's... too hot here and uh usually when I wear a t-shirt uh it's all in sweat. So this is the place where we live and it's a bit messy here right now.

I'm gonna clean this place. He and his family share this small windowless room with two other families. So eleven people use it for total in this tiny nonventilated room. A couple of bunk beds, bars on the door. My wife and who's this? He turns the camera to his son who's holding a smartphone. He's doing what's he doing? Dualingo. He's doing lingua uh dualingo learning. And uh German son. I'm gonna call him Sasha. That's not his real name, but I want to protect his privacy.

Sasha is a small skinny boy with brown hair, and he looks a lot like his dad. And in early April, uh after a month and a half or so that they've been stuck in Katem, it was Sasha's birthday. Hіo sturning seven and I told my wife let's miss this birthday and later when we can come out, we will make the whole day for him. At first she said yes to calm me down, but later she decided to make a birthday to him, so she made a 100% job.

German's wife, I'll call her Ava, also not her real name. She set up a limbo game and this whole play day for Sasha and his friends, kids from twenty some different countries. She even managed to order a cake. She had to ask a favor from the child psychologist that that visited the facility to bring one from the outside. She made this day perfect for my son. Thank you. Thank you.

I feel like seeing his wife smile that day as their son blew out the candles, as he had to celebrate his birthday in this weird Place. That was a big deal for German. Lately he had been seeing her struggle. Yesterday it was a very complicated day. at the cafeteria during the eat because she was tired of all of this situation and uh her mother called calls her Uh and her relative calls her every day and uh in her mind she is uh already in Russia.

I've been connecting these bits and pieces, details that they've given me about how their life used to be back in. They were a middle class. They lived a pretty normal life in St. Petersburg, I believe not too different from mine. And everything changed. One moment.

One day, German walks into the apartment and tells Ava that they need to flee the country because the police are after him. He married a fitness coach. Used to be a fitness coach, that's why he's so buff. But he took the sidekick working a as a poll worker at a polling place for the presidential election. The job of a poll worker is supposed to be collecting votes or counting votes or helping people vote.

But in Russia, his job was just filling out ballots for Putin. This was fraud. I uh knew how uh they fraud on the elections and uh I uh wanted uh to reveal it. It was my little revenge. German told me that he was angry about the war in Ukraine. He was tired of living under this regime all his life. So he decided to film himself doing this. And he was planning to send that video to the Anti Corruption Foundation that was started by Alexei Navalny.

I thought that I'wa was a genius at this time, that everything went by my plan. It was very v exciting moment for me. After filming this video, as he was leaving the polling place, he doesn't know why, but a security guard stopped him, asked for his phone, and saw the footage. German He was taken to a security room and he was left alone while the guard went to call the police. I decided to escape and uh I ran out of this security room, straight to the door and uh just ran to the house.

I know the consequences. You will be imprisoned or you will go to the war. German was afraid that he'd be sent to the front lines in Ukraine. To him, this is a death sentence. And that night when he got home he told his wife everything. She was upset. She was upset but the thing is she didn't uh tell me that I was an idiot but I actually was, because uh I uh made this situation h uh happen.

Uh she asked me what we gonna do, what we gonna not what you gonna do, but what we gonna do. At this time I thought that I need to leave country alone. and she told that no we are family so she is gonna be with me everywhere and no it encouraged me a lot. She's a real she's my real wife wife. I don't know how to exp express you this. She's a real wife. So I worry about my wife, I uh worry about my son's education because he's seven and it's time for him to go to the school.

uh and uh I just don't want to be a failure for my family. But uh no all these things they push us very hard uh into despair, into the darkness.

Right, so I'm on my way now to pick German and his family up. I'm driving them to Volfito, which is a small town. It's about a forty five minute drive from Katem. In early May I drove out to Katem to talk to German again because I learned that he was now friendly. Yeah. German wasn't trapped behind the fence anymore, and since the Long road trip. My plan was to spend the weekend there.

My fiance and daughter. They were kind of or at least my fiance was kind of invested in this story a little bit. Also knowing that German was gonna come out with his family. I guess I did I I wanted to kind of level the playing field YouTuber guy that uh that's just trying to extract the story. Like I have a family as well. We picked up uh German and his family at Katem, and we and that day we went out for lunch at this marina that was near the hotel.

A little bit like two families just grabbing lunch on a on a vacation. Uh so different from the experience of the past three, four months for that family. One two three, one two three. But I'm still following up on the story and we're at this hotel in Golfito. I'm I'm shooting an interview with him. I had this burning question for German now that they're free to leave Katem, what

What are they gonna do? What were there plans? Canada w you said Canada, Australia are probably the best options for you if if you get asylum. That's that's plan A. Yes, uh this is plan A, this is uh the dream number one. Okay, let's call it a dream because so German's dream right now is asylum in an English speaking country.

Honestly, one of the reasons why he's been sharing this story with me in the first place is that he's hoping that we might get enough attention from one of those governments that they might see his case and intervene. But that hasn't happened. What what's plan B? What's the next option? Uh well plan B is uh to go back to United States.

And I don't have to tell him that trying to get into the US would be a challenge. And uh I don't believe uh that with the current administration it's even possible even if courts say yes you can go back. They won't let you. The current administration won't let us. You know, I I'm a fitness coach. I'm a fitness coach. I never uh made a deep research about how what the society feels about immigrants. And I know when you speak about immigrants you mostly speak about Yeah.

is uh equal to criminals right now in the people's mind because uh that is image they create and uh there are some reasons for this image being created. I know. But I never thought that I will be this um faceless immigrant too. As for staying in Costa Rica, they're not even considering it. They'd have to find housing. They don't even know if they'd get a work permit. We can't take these options.

There is one other option that he tells me about. It's one option that I know that German doesn't want to take, but he might have to. Maybe I can't return to my country 100%, but my family can. So maybe it's better for my family that they can return and I will stay here. But this is not plan A, this is plan.

I can see how worried he is about his wife. Uh it's difficult for her because uh she's the mother. First of all, she's the mother and she thinks about Uh she heard a lot of promises, she heard a lot of uh things from me because I told her that soon we will manage with this situation.

there is no end, we don't see an end and I sometimes don't uh understand what she's wanting to tell me. Sometimes uh she don't understand my feelings. Uh and I know one family Who returned to Russia voluntarily and they've got a little kid and they divorced immediately after all of this. But at the same time, I understand that uh we can make this hard decision easily because uh

There is a possibility that we won't m meet each other. Y you know what I'm talking about. So she will live in Russia, I will live in Costa Rica or other another country. Alright, so um this is uh little voice note post uh spending the day with German. During the interview German said that there's a chance that him and his like him he'll stay and his wife and son might go back to Russia. Uh which tears my heart, man. I'm I'm a parent as well.

it would just break me to have to separate myself from my family. F uh w it would break me even more if it's my fault. Um and you know, all for one mistake or for one you know, a attempt at at doing the right thing, I guess. I c I can't I can't imagine an By the end of June, German and his family have been here for about six months. Of the two hundred people that arrived in Katem, only about twenty-eight are left. Some return to their own countries.

slip out of the fence and and disappear. Now the pencil factory feels practically empty. And from the texts and the videos that German keeps sending me, I see him and his family just hit rock bottom. I just had a panic attack here right now. Because I hate this place. I can't be here anymore. My life my wife lays down. the whole day and I just was at medic because I couldn't breathe. I can't see this rusty walls. I can't stand this climate anymore. This is awful. I don't know what to do.

You know, seeing him like that. I could see how how his wife could just take this chance and leave because it was just getting to this to this extreme. And I'm sad, I'm I'm really sad suddenly like there's this m much bigger urgency, like they feel how trapped they are. You know, I I I don't think that I can help every family out there. I realize that. Uh but i if there's something I can do to keep this family from breaking apart, then it's worth a shot.

When we return, to keep German's family together,

Throw us a Hail Mary. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. When last we left, German and his family were deported to a pencil factory in rural Costa Rica. You're not considering splitting apart. Staying in Costa Rica. to Russia. Who stumbled into this story? I doesn't want to see that happen. Zapczaćmy. Hey uh German. Just stopping to say hi. I have been thinking of you know, it could be useful for you guys to see the city or and probably where you would live if you were to stay.

Like you guys are not considering Costa Rica as a place to stay. You know, would would you change your mind maybe if you saw that Costa Rica is much more than there this little glimpse of a very remote area that you've been presented with Katem? It takes us a couple tries, but in early July, finally. German and his family arrive in San Jose after a seven hour bus ride. And the first thing we do is we go for pizza and we go to this park. That surrounded by high rises.

It's a cloudy and chilly day. It's definitely not my favorite kind of day in the city. But for them for them it's It's what they've been waiting for, especially compared to this heat and humidity in Katem. I it's maybe th the way uh day in St. Petersburg looks like. And I can see that immediately they feel more at home. There's city people. And at some point Sherman even tells me that he's got goosebumps.

Even uh you see these goosebumps? It's uh because of their air finally it's not so hot and I like this and I uh it's my body reaction and it's my inner reaction. You know it's combin it's It's very unusual for me to speak on uh camera. No, the no we're not it's we're not gonna have the camera. It's really just the audio. Ah.

In this trip I also got a chance to speak to German's wife, Ava, through a translator. You can do it in Russian and that's why that's so while their son Sasha played on the carpet of the studio with some Legos. When we saw each other in Golfito, um you guys told me that you guys were thinking of going back of to Russia and I was very scared because I didn't want to see your family break apart. Yes, I wanted to add.

At some point we were thinking to go back to Russia. However now thinking it through I understand that that was the wrong decision to make. So after the interview ends, I notice that Ava just keeps talking to her translator. Our translator had brought her mother along, who was originally from Russia. so now my mother is I'd see it in Ava's eyes this idea of But only a week later, they leave the pencil factory again.

Hi Daya. So this is the beginning of our trip. We just left Katem and uh I think in about seven hours we will be at Monteverde and I know Monteverde as this beautiful lush. really popular tourist destination. The poster of Costa Rica. Like any image that you see about Costa Rica and rainforests probably comes from Monteverde.

And this group of Quakers lives there and they're mostly Americans or descendants of Americans and they have offered housing to some of the families in Katem for up to a year. So this is my first impression about our new place to stay. This place is far from everyone else, four or five kilometers away. Down uh from the mountain and it's uh the cavern in the woods. So you see I can see that the place is just not what they imagined.

It's remote, it's rugged, it's rainy. Their house is a small shack, it doesn't have insulation, it doesn't have internet. Their neighbor's dog barks all night. Or my god. Their sink is constantly running and overflows to the floor. And German is disappointed. So is Ava. She's still uh balancing between Slowly though, over the next few weeks, I can hear the tone of German's messages starting to change. I want to share with you my new expressions because as I expected uh

They are different. We visited our neighbors, we spoke with them. Yes, most of them are old people, but I missed this communication. They're all of them they're nice and uh we've got a plan how to uh live here right now. He sends me videos from the classes that the Quaker community offers them in their meeting house. Touch the head. They're teaching them Spanish. They have pottery lessons, yoga. Today in the morning we had high intensity interval training classes. And it was very

good for me because uh after that I was full of strength and I missed it a lot. Now we're climbing. They go on hikes in the mountains. Here's my son trying to climb everywhere. And towards the end of July German sends me this video of his son riding a pony. Hola negro German's walking alongside him, he's holding the camera, very proud. And this is my son. And when I saw it I realized that I think this is the first time I have ever heard German truly laugh. Thank you.

family. Still living in Limba. We don't know how many of the original group of pencil factory asylum seekers remain in Costa Rica. Including Germans. Though at least a few families with kids. National Guard. By an Afghan immigrant who'd recently been granted asylum, the Trump administration responded by immediately halting all asylum decisions.

We did reach out to the Department of Homeland Security to ask about the deportations to Costa Rica and the conditions that German told us he experienced at the border. They didn't respond. Big thanks to German. Ava to Sasha. Juliet Newsner. You can see more. YouTube channel Slide Bean. By Renzo Gorio? Yeah. Artists, editors, and engineers are members of the National Broadcast employees and technicians. Communications Workers of America, AFL CIO, Local 51. of the cot flow. Bowalshad.

And sometimes. Rare occasions.