Just weeks ago, newlyweds Samir Gadirov and Tural Atakishiyev were living together in their uptown Charlotte apartment, working on their new home renovation business.

Gadirov, who had just quit his software engineering job at Wells Fargo, talked to their clients. Atakishiyev was the craftsman. Already, they had about 50 clients lined up, Gadirov said.

The couple from Azerbaijan got married last November at First United Methodist Church, on the anniversary of Atakishiyev leaving for the United States the year before. They were making the most of their lives in North Carolina, traveling to and exploring places like the Tennessee mountains, Miami and Washington, D.C.

But after federal agents arrested Ataskishiyev at a routine immigration appointment last month and then booked him into a notorious detention facility, the couple faced a hard choice. They could either fight the case for months or self-deport back to Azerbaijan.

Even after homosexuality was decriminalized in the post-Soviet country at the turn of the century, intolerance has been commonplace. As recently as December, police raided a gay-friendly venue in the nation’s capital, Baku, and detained more than 100 people.

Gadirov, who built his new life with Atakishiyev as President Donald Trump reshaped America’s immigration system, said it has been a torturous few weeks since his husband got booked.

“I’ve cried a lot, and I’m becoming stronger, but it’s not enough because I will be strong with him only,” Gadirov said.

In a statement, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin defended federal agents arresting Atakishiyev. She encouraged others in the country to self-deport.

The administration has often said it is deporting “the worst of the worst.” Nearly 75% of the people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have no criminal record, according to recent data compiled by Syracuse University researchers.

Atakishiyev is part of that 75%, his husband said.

A routine appointment. A surprise arrest.

Gadirov had permanent residency in the United States when he met Atakishiyev in 2024, while visiting his original home in Azerbaijan.

The first time the two saw each other, it was on a WhatsApp video call, when Gadirov was talking to a mutual friend. Soon after, they met. Then they spent the next two weeks together. The chemistry was instant, Gadirov said, and before long, they were dating.

“He prioritized me always,” Gadirov said of their relationship.

Reluctantly, he returned to the United States, and the two dated long-distance for about two months before Atakishiyev joined him in Charlotte.

“As a gay couple, we couldn’t live there, so that’s why Tural came here,” Gadirov said.

His husband came to the country with temporary permission through an I-94 form issued by the U.S. government, Gadirov said. By the time he got arrested last month, he had already requested asylum and work authorization, he added. Marrying Gadirov, a green card holder, also opened a pathway to permanent residency for him.

But Trump, back in the White House after promising mass deportations on the campaign trail, focused arrests not just near the border but within American cities, too.

Because both immigration enforcement and immigration courts fall under the executive branch, rules for coming to and staying in the U.S. can change quickly from one president to the next. On probation, Atakishiyev’s future depended largely on federal policy.

Under Trump, that policy became much harsher.

Though his immigration appointments started online, the government eventually ordered Atakishiyev to attend in person, his husband said. Nothing seemed different when he went to an office on Saint Vardell Lane for a December check-in. He answered the same questions as always and went home without incident.

During a Jan. 14 appointment, though, Gadirov noticed that his husband had been gone for some time. He started questioning people working there, who told him that Atakishiyev had been moved to the DHS office on Tyvola Centre Drive. Almost immediately, Gadirov said, they moved his husband again to Stewart Detention Center in Georgia.

Suddenly, the noise in their home stilled. For days, he heard nothing about Atakishiyev.

“Tural kind of disappeared,” Gadirov said. “They just stole him, robbed him… You’re doing everything together. You’re cooking here, you’re drinking here, you’re watching TV — and that person is no longer with you.”

It was as though his husband died, he said.

McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary, described Atakishiyev in her statement as an “illegal alien” who “repeatedly” missed check-ins.

His attorney, Marty Rosenbluth, described those claims as “all lies.”

“It’s black and white. I mean, he came to the border and applied for admission,” the attorney said. “He asked to be able to enter to apply for asylum.”

Once he was in the country, Atakishiyev did what he was supposed to, Rosenbluth said.

“Everything that I know is that he fully complied with everything they told him to do,” he said. “He did all the reporting that he was required to do. He sent two photos per week, and they were checking him at his house. They’re just lying.”

Help after senator’s office intervened

Gadirov said that when he finally heard about his husband two days after the arrest, the news was not good: Atakishiyev kept coughing and shaking at night, and he had a fever.

He suspected the food and sanitation in Stewart had something to do with it, and that Atakishiyev’s anxiety and weak stomach threw him further into poor health.

Desperate to get him medicine and unable to get staff at the facility to do anything after trying multiple times, he said he called the Rev. Valerie Rosenquist, a Charlotte pastor who officiated their wedding.

She took the call from a sobbing Gadirov while she happened to be preparing for a vigil in Marshall Park for Renee Good, then contacted Sen. Thom Tillis’ office.

“The director of the medical facility wouldn’t even acknowledge that (Atakishiyev) was there or anything,” Rosenquist recalled.

But, she said, someone came to check on his medical needs “instantaneously” when Tillis’ office intervened. He got the medicine not long after.

Others have reported poor conditions at the Lumpkin, Georgia, facility, one of the largest immigration jails in the country. Last year, immigrant advocates and former inmates told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that, without enough beds there, people were sleeping on concrete.

Local groups have said the same. In December, Carolina Migrant Network attorney Becca O’Neill told The Charlotte Observer that people inside are also being woken up to eat at strangely early hours and receiving subpar medical care.

Tillis’ spokesperson confirmed that his office contacted staff at Stewart Detention Center about Atakishiyev, but did not answer whether the senator is concerned about the jail.

In McLaughlin’s statement, she said Atakishiyev was seen “multiple times by ICE medical providers while in detention.” She did not comment on Tillis’ office reaching out.

More people are being detained for longer stretches of time, Siembra NC Defense Strategist Andreina Malki told the Observer. She and others at Siembra, a group that advocates for immigrants in North Carolina, helped Atakishiyev and Gadirov after learning about their plight.

She estimated that, of late, Siembra has heard about someone getting arrested at a routine immigration appointment three or four times a week.

Even with the relief of Atakishiyev being seen by someone and getting medicine, there was a longer-term question for the couple: How long could they do this?

Gadirov said he consulted with lawyers, and there were two options: fight for months, stay in jail and still potentially lose in the end, or give up.

They are not the kind of people who get arrested and end up in jail, Gadirov said.

Jan. 30 was Gadirov’s thirtieth birthday. He wanted to spend it with his husband, so he drove six hours to Georgia, walked past barbed wire and guards, then into the detention facility.

He recalled speaking to Atakishiyev through a phone, glass separating them, and trying to calm his husband down as he coughed.

Not the America they heard about

On Wednesday, the couple made their decision official in immigration court. Atakishiyev will self-deport; Gadirov said he will follow him soon after.

It is unclear when Atakishiyev will be able to leave the country.

He is not certain how he will do it all, but with the church’s help, Gadirov has started asking for donations online. The church’s website asks simply for contributions to “ICE Detainees.”

“I think this is morally reprehensible,” said Rosenquist, the pastor.

What has happened across the country with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and DHS more generally has been a denial of humanity’s basic well-being, she said, and has made “a group of people — mostly brown and Black people in this country — be considered less than.”

She remembered Gadirov and Atakishiyev at their wedding, in their tuxedos. They wanted to keep their ceremony quiet, she remembered, so it was just herself, an associate pastor and one witness there.

What has stood out to her ever since she met them is how “incredibly thoughtful” they have always been towards each other, she said.

After officiating their wedding, she also served as a reference for Atakishiyev in his immigration process. Going forward, she will try to be a friend to the couple and help them, whether they ever attempt to return to the U.S. or not.

Growing up, Garidov always associated the United States with freedom and democracy.

Lately, though, they have seen masked agents running through Charlotte for five days with guns — a scary period for the couple where they needed to slow their new business down, Gadirov said. In Minnesota, agents killed two American citizens.

After their decision on Wednesday to self-deport, Gadirov said they will live out in the countryside in Azerbaijan. Getting a job as a gay person is difficult, he said, so they might keep some livestock and look out for themselves.

“It’s very hard to plan it because we have nothing there, to be honest,” Gadirov said.

His mother died when he was 13 years old, he said, and his father has not been involved in his life. Similarly, Atakishiyev’s family does not associate with him because he is gay.

Still, Gadirov said, the couple will take their chances. Fighting their case in immigration court might mean months of extra jail time. His husband’s health and mental state are more important than winning that fight, he said.

“It’s good that we’ll meet after some time, but that doesn’t change that our lives (are) just destroyed,” he said shortly after their decision was made official.

Rosenbluth, the attorney, said Atakishiyev is far from the first person to choose self-deportation after feeling worn-down by life in the jail.

“It’s intentional. I assure you,” he said.

Correction: This story was updated on Feb. 10 to clarify the status of Atakishiyev leaving the country.

Ryan Oehrli covers criminal justice in the Charlotte region for The Charlotte Observer. His work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The Observer maintains full editorial control of its journalism.

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