On Thursday morning, from the White House lawn, President Joe Biden announced Brittney Griner would be coming home, proclaiming “I’m proud that today we have made one more family whole again.” But among the millions of families made incomplete by the American carceral state, many won’t share his pride in the United States.
Griner’s release was garnered through a “prisoner swap” in which Biden freed and sent convicted arms Viktor Bout dealer to Russia. Her arrival back to her home country ends a nine-month-long ordeal that began when the basketball star, in Russia to play in one of the country’s basketball leagues, was detained at a Russian airport for having cartridges containing hashish oil. Throughout 2022, her arrest, and subsequent nine-year sentence, were publicly condemned by public officials, activists, fellow athletes, entertainers, and Biden, who in August called her sentence “unacceptable” and demanded her “immediate release.”