He got what he voted for

She did not jump a wall, she did not swim a river. She came in Trump’s beautiful, big front door.

Brett Jindra to The New York Times

Miriam Jordan is an immigration reporter for The New York Times, a California-based national correspondent who wrote a lede for the ages, as she reported a story that defines perfectly the German concept of schadenfreude, for which there is no equivalent English word.

Brent Jindra, a tech salesman, voted for President Trump three times, drawn by his aggressive immigration agenda. He never imagined the crackdown would ensnare his own wife.

Obviously, Mr. Jindra was never exposed to the writings of Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.

Too bad.

It so perfectly helps explain the dilemma that Mr. Jindra and his Russian wife Galina Bobreneva find themselves in, surprised that it was them — not the low-down brown- skinned person who climbed a wall or swam a river to come into the United States.

Here’s more from The New York Times:

Last month, moments after the couple got off their flight in Burbank, Calif., a young man in a brown hooded sweatshirt stopped Galina Bobreneva.

“Congratulations, you’ve been chosen for secondary screening,” he told her, according to the couple’s recollection.

The man was a federal agent, and after questioning Ms. Bobreneva for about 15 minutes, he led her away in handcuffs to an unmarked vehicle.

“I’m only doing my job,” he said. “Everything will be OK.”

It wasn’t.

Here’s more detail from the story about what happened next:

She was held in a frigid room with a handful of women. She recalled a gaunt diabetic immigrant in her 70s pleading for insulin, to no avail. Ms. Bobreneva curled up on the ground under a foil blanket.

About 18 hours later, she was shackled at the ankles, waist and wrists and loaded into an unmarked van with several other immigrants. They bounced up and down in the sweltering vehicle as it raced toward the detention center in Adelanto.

“I felt like a piece of meat, not like a human,” recalled Ms. Bobreneva.

By the time she changed into blue prison garb and was assigned bunk L63 — a lower bed in the women’s section — it was 5 a.m. Thirty minutes later, as she drifted off to sleep, orders blared over the loudspeaker for detainee count and breakfast lineup.

Sleep deprivation was a constant, she said. Lights were always on. Hand-held radios carried by the guards crackled day and night. On her birthday, Ms. Bobreneva recalled, she shared chocolate she had ordered from the commissary with fellow Russian-speaking detainees from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Armenia.

Ms. Bobreneva described neglect, filth and people in despair.

For 120 women, there were seven showers; only four worked. Potable water was scarce; ailing people were denied care until they required hospitalization, she said, echoing allegations in a federal lawsuit.

This is exactly what her husband voted for.

He voted for cruelty in 2016.

Here’s what Donald Trump said about Mexicans in 2015:

When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

Here’s what Trump said after an immigration meeting in the White House in 2018:

Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?

He voted for malice in 2020.

He voted for insurrection, cruelty, revenge and the American Gestapo in 2024.

It turned on him and his Russian wife in 2026.

Mr, Jindra got the America he voted for, the one where a federal agent wearing a brown hoodie meets you on a jetway, and whisks you away in an unmarked car to a brutal archipelago of federal facilities run by contractors, where abuse is the order of the day.

No doubt, someone close to Mr. Jindra has told him and his Russian wife Galina that Trump will read this story, and he will intervene to save them. After all, she doesn’t look very different from all of those white Afrikaners let in by Trump and Stephen Miller.

By the way, every single one of those South Africans let into the United States by Donald Trump should be ready to leave the United States by early 2029.

In the case of Ms. Bobreneva, here was her crime, according to The New York Times:

Ms. Bobreneva arrived on a tourist visa in late 2021, extended it twice following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and applied for asylum in 2022. She met Mr. Jindra in March 2025 and by December they were married.

“It was your storybook romance,” he said.

Mr. Jindra petitioned in April to sponsor his wife for a marriage-based green card. They received official confirmation the application had been accepted. She was fingerprinted.

The newlyweds bought a “dream house” in Cleveland, Ohio, where Mr. Jindra was raised, and intended to relocate there soon.

They planned a trip to Sonoma County’s wine country to celebrate Ms. Bobreneva’s 40th birthday on July 16. Mr. Jindra booked a suite at a boutique hotel, prepaid for visits to three vineyards and hired a driver.

They never made it.

More from the story:

In response to questions about Ms. Bobreneva’s case, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that she was “an illegal alien” targeted for arrest because “she overstayed her welcome in violation of our nation’s laws.

Oh, and there is one last thing. Ms. Bobreneva was sprung from confinement after 16 days, on a $35,000 bond with an ankle monitor and a 75-mile range of allowed travel. She went out to dinner with her husband and she could barely touch her crab cake, according to The New York Times.

Her husband, Mr. Jindra summed up the reason for the loss of appetite:

We are living in fear in my own country.

His wife, strangely for a Russian married to a three-time MAGA voter, said this:

I never thought that it was so easy to take freedom from anyone.

I wonder what they thought when Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered.

I wonder how many hours per day Fox News blares from their television denouncing immigrants.

I think I know the answer.

I do know this.

Mr. Jindra got exactly what he voted for.

The vow is for better or worse, and it looks like for Mr. Jindra and Ms. Bobreneva worse may soon be a Moscow winter under Ukrainian attack, which somehow seems fitting for this MAGA clown who dared to portray himself and his wife as victims.

Please.

If only brown-skinned hands clutched together could make a New York Times reader shed a tear.

I have some questions for Mr. Jindra:

Do you understand the price of malice married to indifference now?

Do you understand what Pastor Niemöller was trying to say?

Have you ever heard the expression about pain being the best teacher?

It’s true.

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