{"id":279690,"date":"2025-04-11T14:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T14:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/11\/she-worked-in-a-harvard-lab-to-reverse-aging-until-ice-jailed-her\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T14:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T14:56:08","slug":"she-worked-in-a-harvard-lab-to-reverse-aging-until-ice-jailed-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/11\/she-worked-in-a-harvard-lab-to-reverse-aging-until-ice-jailed-her\/","title":{"rendered":"She Worked in a Harvard Lab to Reverse Aging, Until ICE Jailed Her"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/11\/multimedia\/11SCIENTIST-DETAINED-01-gfwv\/11SCIENTIST-DETAINED-01-gfwv-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"She Worked in a Harvard Lab to Reverse Aging, Until ICE Jailed Her\" title=\"She Worked in a Harvard Lab to Reverse Aging, Until ICE Jailed Her\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-22b9fa8c\">A shift in the atmosphere<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Petrova\u2019s return flight from Paris landed in Boston on the evening of Feb. 16. As the plane sat on the tarmac, she texted back and forth with Dr. Peshkin, trying to confirm how she should handle the package in customs. But by then, the passengers were already filing off the plane, he said, and Ms. Petrova cut short the conversation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At first, Ms. Petrova said, her re-entry felt normal. At passport control, an officer examined the J-1 visa that Harvard had sponsored, identifying her as a biomedical researcher. The officer stamped her passport, admitting her to the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Then, as she headed toward the baggage claim, a Border Patrol officer approached her and asked to search her suitcase. All she could think was that the embryo samples inside would be ruined; RNA degrades easily. She explained that she didn\u2019t know the rules. The officer was polite, she recalled, and told her she would be allowed to leave.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Then a different officer came into the room, and the tone of the conversation changed, Ms. Petrova said. This officer asked detailed questions about the samples, Ms. Petrova\u2019s work history and her travel in Europe. The official then informed Ms. Petrova that she was canceling her visa and asked her whether she was afraid to be deported to Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cYes, I am scared to go back to Russia,\u201d she said, according to a Department of Homeland Security transcript provided by her lawyer. \u201cI am afraid the Russian Federation will kill me for protesting against them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Petrova\u2019s attorney, Greg Romanovsky, said that Customs and Border Protection had overreached its authority by canceling her visa. He acknowledged that she had violated customs regulations but said it was a minor offense, punishable by forfeiture and a fine. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">To cancel her visa, Mr. Romanovsky said, the agents needed to identify grounds for excluding her. \u201cThere are many, many grounds of inadmissibility, but violating a customs rule is certainly not one of them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Lucas Guttentag, a professor at Stanford Law School, reviewed documents in the case and agreed. He said that Ms. Petrova had been legally admitted to the United States, and then \u201cthe government itself created the alleged improper immigration status that is now the basis for her detention.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cSubjecting anyone to this process is wrong, and this case is both shocking and revealing,\u201d said Mr. Guttentag, who served as a senior Justice Department advisor under President Biden and senior advisor to the D.H.S. during the Obama administration. <\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"imageblock-wrapper\">\n<figure class=\"img-sz-small css-1189og3 e1g7ppur0\" aria-label=\"media\" role=\"group\"><figcaption data-testid=\"photoviewer-children-caption\" class=\"css-13ytnnu ewdxa0s0\"><span class=\"css-jevhma e13ogyst0\">In February, customs officials detained Ms. Petrova at Logan International Airport in Boston for failing to declare samples of frog embryos.<\/span><span class=\"css-14fe1uy e1z0qqy90\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Credit&#8230;<\/span><span><span aria-hidden=\"false\">M. Scott Brauer for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A spokesperson for the D.H.S., asked why Ms. Petrova\u2019s visa had been canceled, said that a canine inspection found petri dishes and vials of embryonic stem cells in her luggage without proper permits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe individual was lawfully detained after lying to federal officers about carrying biological substances into the country,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cMessages on her phone revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them. She knowingly broke the law and took deliberate steps to evade it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When the border patrol agent canceled Ms. Petrova\u2019s visa, she became an undocumented immigrant, among the thousands detained since Mr. Trump took office. She was sent to the Richwood Detention Center to await a hearing in which she will present her case for asylum to an immigration judge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIf she wins, she will not be deported,\u201d Mr. Romanovsky said. \u201cIf she loses, she will be deported to Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He has also filed a petition for her release in federal court. \u201cI am basically pleading for mercy,\u201d he said. \u201cIn a different environment, I think she would have been out a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Petrova has spent the last month in a dormitory lined with rows of bunk beds. It is cold, and at night, the women sometimes shiver under thin blankets. Once a day, they are allowed an hour outside. Breakfast comes at different times, sometimes as early as 3:30 a.m. The hardest thing, she said, is the constant noise. The facility\u2019s psychiatrist gave her earplugs to help her sleep.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Unable to work, she observes the women around her. Around half are Latin Americans in their 30s and 40s who crossed the border for economic reasons, she said. A second group is made up of Asians and citizens of former Soviet states, who crossed the border legally, seeking political asylum.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">None of them deserve to be held under these conditions, she said. \u201cI thought this was impossible, to be in this situation,\u201d she said. \u201cEven immigrants here, they have to have some rights. But it seems that nobody really cares about our rights here.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It has challenged the view of America that she formed in Russia. \u201cThis is not the kind of America I used to know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-44b8dc0f\">An empty bench<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/11\/science\/russian-scientist-ice-detained-harvard.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A shift in the atmosphere Ms. Petrova\u2019s return flight from Paris landed in Boston on the evening of Feb. 16. As the plane sat on the tarmac, she texted back and forth with Dr. Peshkin, trying to confirm how she should handle the package in customs. But by then, the passengers were already filing off [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/11\/multimedia\/11SCIENTIST-DETAINED-01-gfwv\/11SCIENTIST-DETAINED-01-gfwv-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1112,200518,175828,5500,5662,50202,216392,44794,7062,173483,164426,172006,4267,216394,253,183435,216393,7609,137131,5623,9431,53010,163486,3317],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279690"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279692,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279690\/revisions\/279692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}