Feds file smuggling charge against Petrova after Judge Christina Reiss questioned a CBP officer’s authority to strip her of her student visa.
Homeland Security offers $1,000, flight home for self-deportation
President Trump offered his support of a Homeland Security proposal to pay people who choose to self-deport $1,000 and open a path to legal re-entry.
The Trump administration has levied federal smuggling charges against Harvard scientist Kseniia Petrova as the Russian national fights for her freedom from immigration detention.
Prosecutors filed the charges in U.S. District Court for Massachussetts, made public on May 14, the same day a federal judge in Vermont heard arguments in Petrova’s case against the U.S. government for wrongful detention.
The government contends that Petrova failed to declare biologic material when arriving at Boston’s Logan International Airport in February. In the lawsuit, the government asked U.S. Judge Christina Reiss to dismiss Petrova’s case and deport her to her native Russia.
Petrova sued the Trump administration after customs officers canceled her visa and turned her over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for failing to declare biological samples.
In court documents, Petrova’s lawyers have argued that the samples – non-living, chemically fixed frog embryos –were not alive, therefore she didn’t believe they needed to be declared. In the past, a similar violation might have led to a fine.
Petrova left Russia after protesting against Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, and said she fears returning.
This story will be updated.