Kseniia Petrova didn’t smuggle poison. She didn’t carry secrets. She brought frog embryos. For science.
A Russian-born bioinformatician at Harvard Medical School, Kseniia was working on regenerative medicine — research that saves lives and wins Nobel Prizes. Her mentor asked her to carry embryo samples back from France. She did. Carefully. Legally. Labeled.
But when she landed at Boston Logan Airport on February 16, 2025, Customs flagged the shipment. A paperwork mismatch. A missing form. A box of frog cells treated like fentanyl.
ICE revoked her visa. Cuffed her. Shipped her to Louisiana — the biomedical capital of fuck you.
Today, Kseniia remains detained at Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, Louisiana, where she has been held for over two months. Her colleagues at Harvard — leading cancer researchers — describe her as indispensable. Her research is frozen. Her supervisor admitted the error was his fault. The government still doesn’t care.
An immigration judge recently found the government’s deportation case “legally deficient.” ICE was given until early May to provide new documentation. Kseniia’s next immigration court hearing is scheduled for May 7 in Jena, Louisiana, with a separate habeas corpus hearing set for June 9 in Vermont.
Meanwhile, Kseniia continues to seek asylum, fearing persecution if returned to Russia. She is a vocal opponent of the war in Ukraine and has already been arrested once for protesting Putin’s regime.
This isn’t border security. This is academic sabotage. Retaliation rubber-stamped in triplicate.
And Kseniia Petrova? She’s still locked up. Because frog embryos scare this regime more than facts.
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This post has been syndicated from Closer to the Edge, where it was published under this address.