Federal authorities have said Harvard’s Xenia Petrova “deliberately broke the law” amid continuing push for the deportation of Russian scientists.
Petrova, a bioinformentor at the Kirschner Institute at Harvard Medical School, was taken into custody at Boston Logan International Airport On February 16th, when she returned from a trip to Paris.
Her lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, told Fox News that Petrova is retrieving frog embryos at the request of a professor in a French lab where Ivy League University collaborates. According to Romanovsky, the samples were to be picked up in Paris and taken to Harvard, and Petrova had not realised that they had to be charged at customs.
“Individuals were legally detained after lying to federal officials about transporting substances into the country,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wrote in an X post Tuesday. “The subsequent K9 tests showed that undeclared Petri dishes, containers of unknown substances, and loose vials of embryonic frog cells were all without proper permission.”
Ksenia Petrova, a Russian scientist who works at Harvard Medical School, was taken into custody at Boston Logan International Airport on February 16th, when he returned from a trip to Paris. (Attorney Gregory Romanovsky)
The federal government said messages found on the 30-year-old’s phone revealed that she plans to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them.
“She intentionally broke the law and took deliberate steps to avoid it,” the DHS alleged.
Petrova’s lawyers push back the story and say not declaring the object at customs is not sufficient grounds to cancel her visa. Rather, he said officials should have fined the object and seized it.
“The CBP was allowed to seize the items and issue fines,” he said. “Instead, they chose to cancel Petrova’s visa and detain her.”
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Kseniia Petrova, a bioinformatica at the Kirschner Institute at Harvard Medical School, had regained a frog embryo at the professor’s request in a French lab where Harvard University worked with, her lawyer told Fox News. (Gregory Romanovsky)
Romanovsky said it caused credible fear and subsequently sought the asylum of Petrova, who had been previously detained in Russia for anti-war protests shortly after the attack on Ukraine.
“She faces immediate threat of arrest due to her previous political activities and her honest opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” he said.
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Petrova is being held at Richwood Detention Facility in Louisiana and will have a scheduled Immigration Court hearing in connection with an asylum case in Jena, Louisiana on May 7th.
Kseniia Petrova is currently being held at Richwood Detention Facility in Louisiana. (Facebook)
Her lawyer was also challenging CBP’s actions at the airport: visa cancellation. In that case, a federal court hearing was scheduled for June 9th in the Vermont area, but the plan was to ask them to facilitate the hearing.
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“Ice is necessary to restrain individuals… only if they are flight risk or risk to the community. Mr. Petrova is neither,” Romanovsky said. “Her continued detention is not fulfilling its purpose and government resources are limited.”
