Overview
- Judge Christina Reiss ruled in Burlington that ICE lacked legal or factual grounds to cancel Petrova’s visa and granted her bail in the immigration proceedings.
- Petrova remains in U.S. Marshals Service custody under a felony smuggling charge after authorities discovered undeclared frog embryos in her luggage.
- A Massachusetts court will decide her criminal bail next week as prosecutors maintain she misled officials about carrying the biological samples.
- Department of Homeland Security has signaled plans to deport her to Russia, where she fears imprisonment for her anti-war activism.
- Harvard colleagues and biotech experts testified that the frog embryos were inert and vital to her cancer and aging research, warning her detention undermines academic freedom.