A Harvard scientist who fled Russia because she opposed the war in Ukraine is facing deportation back to the land of Vladimir Putin, her friends claim.
Kseniia Petrova, a bioinformatician at the Kirschner Lab at Harvard Medical School, was detained at the U.S. border on February 16 while returning from France and had her visa revoked, according to her friend Cora Anderson.
Other friends gave similar accounts to independent Russian-language media outlets. One friend said she believed Petrova was initially detained for failing to properly declare frog embryo samples she was bringing back as part of a research project — but that would have typically cost her a small fine.
U.S. officials have not yet commented on the case, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s online lookup tool does list a Kseniia Petrova from Russia as being detained in Louisiana.
“Kseniia is a Russian woman that had to leave her home country and family because she was going to go to prison for opposing the war with Ukraine,” said Anderson in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
“Once hired, she worked hard and has been an absolute delight for all to work with and a loving and loyal friend,” Anderson added. “Her giggly and bubbly personality really brightened up the lab space and anywhere she may be. Not only is she kind, but incredibly intelligent and diligent.”
When “told she was to be deported to Russia, she said she feared persecution, [that] she would have gone immediately to prison as soon as she got there. Once this was said, she was taken by ICE to a detention center,” said Anderson.
“Despite having lawyers and the fact she did not do anything illegal in the first place, she is still [in detention], and we have no idea when she will be paroled. I miss my friend and just want her home in Boston.”
A GoFundMe page set up by Anderson to cover Petrova’s legal expenses raised nearly $29,000 of its $30,000 goal as of Thursday evening.
Petrova’s case is one of many recent similar situations since Donald Trump’s return to power in which legal immigrants in the U.S. have been imprisoned for weeks at a time after having their visas revoked, often for unclear reasons or for political positions.
Trump promised campaigning for president that he would target undocumented immigrants guilty of grave physical crimes.
Tourists and international travelers have also been detained, and the Department of Homeland Security has revoked the legal status of more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, leaving them open to deportation in about a month.
Trump, meanwhile, has abruptly reversed the nation’s stance on the war in Ukraine, suspending military aid and intelligence sharing while demanding control of the embattled country’s energy and mineral resources, and falsely claiming that Ukraine started the war. Trump called Putin a “genius” after he invaded Ukraine three years ago..
The Biden administration reportedly paused all deportation flights to Russia after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, but quietly restarted them one year later.
Petrova’s friend Andrei Shevtsov told the exiled Russian news site Agentstvothat her visa had been cancelled due to undeclared frog embryos, but claimed that normally that would only earn a fine of $500 or less.
One friend who wished to remain anonymous also told Mediazone that the embryos were kept in a large cold box that was “clearly impossible to hide,” and said Petrova may simply have made a mistake in filling out her customs declaration.
Source: independent.co.uk