A Russian scientist working at Harvard Medical School has been detained by federal immigration officials, according to colleagues and reports.
Kseniia Petrova is currently being held at a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana after she was taken into custody at Boston Logan Airport after returning from a personal trip to France on Feb. 16.
Her research visa was revoked because she did not properly declare frog embryos she had brought back to the country, according to The Harvard Crimson.
Petrova — who was arrested in Russia in 2022 for speaking out against the Ukraine war — was given the option to be sent back to her native country and be barred from re-entering the US for five years or return to France and apply for a new visa, the student paper reported.
She chose France, but when she told a CBP officer that she feared persecution back in her home country, the agency detained her instead, according to a petition filed by her attorney, Gregory Romanovsky.
