Russian Harvard Researcher Kseniia Petrova Awaits Bail Hearing Amid Deportation Proceedings
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A US district court judge in Vermont ruled that Kseniia Petrova, the Harvard Medical School researcher from Russia accused of smuggling frog embryos, could be released from ICE custody on bail.
The researcher remains in custody until a bail hearing on criminal charges, expected next week.
Petrova, 30, was arrested at Boston Logan International Airport on February 16 and detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The bail hearing was held in Burlington, Vermont, federal district court before Chief District Judge Christina Reiss Wednesday, though Petrova joined via Zoom from a facility in Louisiana where she is being held.
Petrova is among the hundreds of foreign academics whose visas have been revoked amid Trump's deportation crackdown.
Petrova is facing deportation to Russia, where her attorneys say she fears persecution due to her previous political activism against the war in Ukraine.
'Ms. Petrova has presented compelling evidence of improper government conduct—including efforts to jail and prosecute her—over a minor customs violation,' her attorneys wrote in a brief to the court this week. 'If re-detained by ICE, there is a substantial and well-founded risk that she will be unlawfully removed to Russia—despite her past political persecution there.'
Petrova failed to declare the biological materials and lied to federal officers about carrying them into the country as she was going through a customs search at the airport in February, the Department of Homeland Security has said.
During an inspection federal officers found the biological materials even though Petrova said she didn't have any such materials, the complaint said. Messages were also found on Petrova's cell phone which indicated she had been warned by colleagues about the need to follow proper protocol when bringing materials through the airport, court documents show.
'I'm told this would normally result in a warning or a fine. Instead, my visa was revoked and I was sent to a detention center in Louisiana, where I have spent the past three months with roughly 100 other women. We share one room with dormitory-style beds,' Petrova wrote in an essay published this month in The New York Times.
In an unusual escalation earlier this month, Petrova, who has been fighting deportation proceedings since her arrest, was also charged with felony smuggling charges in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts US Attorney Leah Foley said Petrova lied to officials about having biological material in her baggage.
'The rule of law does not have a carve out for educated individuals with pedigree,' Foley said in a recorded video statement. 'The US visa that Ms. Petrova was given, which was revoked by customs officials as a result of her conduct, is a privilege, not a right.'
While Petrova has admitted to failing to declare the frog samples, the airport incident should have resulted in a fine and been treated as a minor violation, Petrova's lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky has said. Instead, Petrova's visa was immediately revoked, and she was detained in what her attorney has described as a government overstep.
Following the government's new charges, a federal magistrate judge ordered Petrova's transfer to Massachusetts.
Petrova's attorney filed habeas and bail motions in Vermont where she was held shortly after her initial detention before being transferred to Louisiana. A habeas motion requires the person holding a detainee to justify the detention.
Attorneys for the Department of Justice have told the court Petrova's bail motion should be considered moot given the new criminal charges and because Petrova has been transferred from ICE to criminal custody at the Richwood Correctional Facility in Monroe, Louisiana, documents show.
'Ms. Petrova is not in the immediate custody of any of the defendants named in her original habeas petition and her challenge to her prior immigration detention is moot,' government attorneys wrote in the brief.
In their response, Petrova's attorneys accuse the government of trumping up criminal charges in a bid to prevent her bail and motions from being heard in federal court.
'The government should not be encouraged to bring criminal charges against ICE detainees in order to moot their habeas petitions. This is especially important since it is the government's position that the mere arrest under criminal charges—whether genuine or pretextual—would suffice to moot an ICE detainee's habeas petition,' Petrova's attorneys wrote.
Petrova is eager to get back to her lab, where she uses a one-of-a-kind microscope that can accomplish the 'almost impossible' task of measuring certain tissue samples without damaging them, she wrote in her New York Times essay. It's a development she calls 'utterly revolutionary' – and one that could aid in the research of diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's.
'There is a data set that I'm halfway finished analyzing. I want to go home and finish it,' Petrova wrote.
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