"We Didn't Go for the Citizenship": Ex-Judge Explains His Children's US Passports
Rizvan Yusupov, a former judge of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tatarstan who left his post due to his children«s American citizenship, has explained why the family decided to give birth in the United States. He told a 116.RU correspondent this during a break in a court session, which was held behind closed doors.
According to the ex-judge, his wife Elvira Yusupova gave birth to their first child in Kazan in 1999, but the delivery was unsuccessful and the child did not survive. It was for medical reasons, Yusupov said, that the family decided to travel to America for the next birth.
«We didn»t go there for the citizenship,« Yusupov noted emotionally.
In 2002, he said, his wife gave birth to a child on her own in Kazan. Their son Gayaz, however, was born in the United States due to medical contraindications to natural childbirth in Kazan, though Elvira had wanted to deliver naturally. The couple«s daughter was also born in the US.
«If we hadn»t gone there, these children might not have existed at all,« he admitted.
Yusupov shared that the family did not hide the children«s citizenship; there were simply difficulties with the documents. He said that at the registry office, his wife was allegedly advised that she could obtain a certificate stating the birth took place at home.
«For example, there are certain computer programs—you have to enter the child»s data, and the numbers, say, from foreign birth certificates simply cannot be entered,« he explained.
The former judge added that when the criminal case was initiated, his children even wanted to renounce their American citizenship, but the embassy allegedly did not respond to such a request. He also stated that his entire family currently lives in Russia.
«This isn»t about notification, but about the intentional, deliberate concealment of a child«s foreign citizenship from the state. I took the American birth certificate, translated it into Russian, had it apostilled, brought it to the consulate—the consulate handles citizenship matters abroad. The consul general signed my application, meaning the birth certificate is proof of the child»s citizenship. How could I have hidden this?« Yusupov reasoned.
Rizvan Yusupov worked in the judicial system from 1993. He started as a judge«s trainee, then became an assistant to a judge at the Leninsky District Court of Kazan. From 1996 to 2010, he served as a judge at the Aviastroitelny District Court of Kazan. Since 2010, he has been a judge of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tatarstan. In 2015, he was awarded the honorary title »Honored Lawyer of the Republic of Tatarstan.«
Recall that his departure from the judge«s position became known in August 2024. At that time, Telegram channels circulated information that Yusupov and his wife hid that they had traveled to the US to give birth, instead telling everyone the births occurred at home in Kazan. A criminal case was initiated against Elvira and her 20-year-old son Gayaz for concealing information about a passport of another state (Article 330.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). At the time, Yusupov refused to speak with the 116.RU correspondent.
