Harvard Medical Researcher Granted Bail in Immigration Case

A federal judge has granted a Harvard Medical School research associate bail in her immigration case, but she still faces a criminal charge and remains in detention, media reported Wednesday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Kseniia Petrova, a Russian native, more than three months ago when she tried to re-enter the U.S. at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Federal prosecutors have charged her with allegedly trying to smuggle frog embryos into the U.S., but they only announced that charge about two weeks ago—well into her ICE detention. Her lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, has said that Petrova “was suddenly transferred from ICE to criminal custody” less than two hours after a judge set a hearing on her release.

Judge Christina Reiss of the U.S. District Court of Vermont said in a hearing Wednesday that Petrova’s immigration detention was unjustified and granted bail, but Reiss gave the government until Friday to propose release terms, NBC News reported.

In a statement Wednesday, Romanovsky said the “hearing gave us the opportunity to present clear and convincing evidence that Kseniia Petrova was not carrying anything dangerous or unlawful, and that customs officers at Logan International Airport had no legal authority to revoke her visa or detain her. At today’s hearing, we demonstrated that Kseniia is neither a danger to the community nor a flight risk and does not belong in immigration detention.”

A senior official at the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Petrova was lawfully detained.

“Messages found on her phone revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them,”’the official said. She knowingly broke the law and took deliberate steps to evade it. A visa is a privilege, not a right. The Trump administration will not give up its mission to restore common sense and the rule of law to our immigration system, and we will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country.”