A federal judge ruled that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) unlawfully canceled the visa of Kseniia Petrova, a Russian-born scientist researching advanced imaging technology at Harvard University.
Key Takeaways
A federal judge ruled that U.S. Customs and Border Protection unlawfully canceled Harvard scientist Kseniia Petrova's visa after detaining her over frog embryos in her luggage.
- Judge Christina Reiss found the visa cancellation arbitrary and capricious
- Petrova was detained for four months but has since returned to work at Harvard
- Criminal case and immigration proceedings against Petrova continue
- Scientific community watches case closely due to potential impact on foreign researchers
According to UPI, Judge Christina Reiss stated that CBP had no authority to cancel Petrova's visa for allegedly failing to declare frog embryos she was carrying in February 2025. The judge found the cancellation arbitrary and capricious, as reported by The Washington Post. Petrova was detained for about four months after being stopped at Boston's Logan International Airport.
Per The Daily Mail, Petrova had obtained the frog embryos from a lab in France during a vacation. She was transporting them on behalf of her colleague Leonid Peshkin, who initially intended to mail the samples but encountered issues with shipping. The judge noted that CBP officers exceeded their authority and acted arbitrarily.
The case has drawn attention from the scientific community, which fears it could impact recruiting and retaining foreign scientists in U.S. universities. Petrova's attorney, Gregory Romanovsky, praised the ruling as an important step toward correcting what he described as an unjust action. NBC News reported that Petrova returned to her lab at Harvard in January after winning an earlier petition to resume work.
The criminal case against Petrova for smuggling biological material into the United States is still pending, with a trial set for later 2026. Immigration proceedings related to the incident also continue. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has not yet commented on the ruling, as noted by HuffPost.
How this summary was created
This summary synthesizes reporting from 3 independent publishers using AI. All sources are cited and linked below. NewsBalance is a news aggregator and media literacy tool, not a news publisher. AI-generated content may contain errors or inaccuracies — always verify important information with the original sources.