AILSA CHANG, HOST:
It took the cooperation of several countries last summer for the U.S. and Russia to complete the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War. Paul Whelan, a 55-year-old retired U.S. Marine, was freed in that exchange. He had been held for more than five years. But since returning home to Michigan, he says he still feels trapped, this time in a web of bureaucracy. WDET's Quinn Klinefelter explains.
QUINN KLINEFELTER, BYLINE: Last August, a crowd of reporters and photographers gathered at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and trained their cameras on a small plane that had just touched down. The first to emerge was a tall, light-haired man with glasses, who steadied himself on the handrailings before he snapped off a crisp salute.
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LAURA COATES: It was Paul Whelan, who has been serving a sentence for years.
KLINEFELTER: A CNN announcer described Whelan's actions.
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COATES: Now embracing the president of the United States of America after a lengthy conversation as he's turning his head towards the family members that await him, waving back to the crowd as America waves back.
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KLINEFELTER: But Whelan says the excitement about his return soon faded.
PAUL WHELAN: What we found is that once you're home, you're actually on your own. You know, the attention turns on the next guy that's still locked up somewhere abroad.
KLINEFELTER: Whelan was arrested on false espionage charges in December of 2018 and waited years to be freed while the U.S. negotiated the release of other American captives. After the first year of his detention, his employer, BorgWarner, cut his job as director of global security and his insurance coverage. When he finally arrived home, Whelan found that he did not qualify for unemployment because he had not worked in Michigan recently.
WHELAN: Well, I was working, but I was working in a Russian labor camp. And that apparently doesn't count.
KLINEFELTER: A member of Congress had to contact Michigan's secretary of state just for Whelan to get a driver's license and identification. And being convicted of a crime in Russia, even a crime the U.S. government declared was bogus, created problems.
WHELAN: When I applied for a renewal of my Global Entry card, which comes from Customs and Border Patrol, I had a hard time with them 'cause they kept focusing on the fact that, well, you were arrested, and you were imprisoned overseas. And I said, yeah, and look at the pictures of the president meeting me at Andrews Air Force Base when I came back.
KLINEFELTER: Strangest of all, he says, was when he tried to get full Medicaid coverage through the state.
WHELAN: I'd applied for medical care, and I had a letter back saying that I didn't qualify because I wasn't a U.S. citizen. It makes you scratch your head, to be quite honest. I mean, how could somebody have sent that to me? But they did. And I said, you know, you could just Google my name right now.
KLINEFELTER: It's not supposed to be that difficult for returning hostages. Congress created the Levinson Act specifically to provide medical and other help to them and their families for five years after their release, but Congress never funded it. Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens says there's a bipartisan effort to add that appropriation.
HALEY STEVENS: Someone like Paul Whelan - 5 1/2 years taken from him. If he was wrongfully imprisoned in the United States, he'd arguably get compensation. Paul Whelan right now is living off of a GoFundMe. And it's unacceptable, and it's wrong.
KLINEFELTER: Whelan lives with his elderly parents in the small village of Manchester, roughly 60 miles southwest of Detroit. And he says he literally depends on the kindness of strangers.
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KLINEFELTER: At the Manchester Diner, owner Leslie Kirkland has a job tip, offering to connect Whelan with a regular customer who runs a cybersecurity company.
LESLIE KIRKLAND: Try and talk to him this weekend. I know he'll come in for chicken and waffles. And I can see if he's got something for you or he can put you in the right direction for something.
KLINEFELTER: Whelan smiles then glances at his phone. He's just got a message from another former hostage, one of several who text each other regularly, seeking advice and encouragement.
WHELAN: It's a small community, but we keep in touch - sort of like a group of misfit toys (laughter).
KLINEFELTER: Whelan talks about support he's received from the community, the car dealers who've offered him a leased vehicle and the private practitioners that provided him with some medical and dental help.
WHELAN: But the reality is that when you get off the plane, you find that your former life isn't there. The homes that we've left are not the homes that we come back to. It's a process of putting puzzle pieces together yourself.
KLINEFELTER: Whelan says if he can help the government develop new methods to support anyone else who might be detained, maybe his half-decade in the darkest corners of the Russian prison system will count for more than just time taken away from him.
For NPR News, I'm Quinn Klinefelter in Detroit.
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