Officer improperly canceled visa of Harvard scholar charged with frog embryo smuggling, judge rules
A U.S. judge on Tuesday ruled that a customs official improperly revoked the visa of a Russian-born scientist and Harvard University researcher. frog embryo smuggling in the USA
The opinion stated that Customs and Border Protection officers have limited authority to revoke visas and cannot do so in cases of suspected biological sample smuggling. Cancellation Ksenia Petrova In her written decision, U.S. District Court Judge Christina Reiss said that ‘s visa was arbitrary and capricious.
“The undisputed facts establish that Ms. Petrova’s visa was impermissibly revoked because of the frog embryo samples and for no other reason,” Reiss wrote.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which includes Customs and Border Protection, did not immediately respond to an email message seeking comment.
In February last year, Petrova was returning from a holiday in France, where she stopped at a laboratory specializing in splicing very thin sections of frog embryos and took a packet of samples for research. He was questioned about the samples while passing through the customs checkpoint at Boston Logan International Airport.
After interrogation, Petrova was told that her visa had been cancelled.
Petrova was briefly detained by immigration officials in Vermont and petitioned for her release. He was then sent to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana.
he told the Associated Press in an interview He said last year that he did not realize the samples had to be declared and that he was not trying to sneak anything into the country. Petrova has been back at the Harvard lab since January after successfully petitioning the court for the right to return to work, her lawyer Gregory Romanovsky said.
Romanovsky said in a statement that Tuesday’s decision was an important step toward “fixing things that never should have happened in the first place.”
Petrova’s case is being closely followed by the scientific community; Some fear this could affect the recruitment and retention of foreign scientists at U.S. universities.
