Kseniia Petrova, a Russian national and researcher at Harvard Medical School, recently found herself in a dire situation that stemmed from an incident involving frog embryos.
On her return to the United States from France in February, Petrova failed to declare the “non-hazardous” frog embryos she was transporting.
Her attorney, Greg Romanovsky, stated that the oversight on the customs form was inadvertent.
Rather than facing a fine for her error, Petrova’s exchange visitor visa was revoked, leading her to be taken into custody.
Romanovsky emphasized the punitive nature of the visa revocation, calling it a “punishment grossly disproportionate to the situation.”
In a statement made to ABC News, the Department of Homeland Security indicated that messages found on Petrova’s phone implied she intended to smuggle the embryos through customs without declaring them.
Currently, Petrova is detained in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Louisiana, awaiting a June 9 hearing that might result in her deportation back to Russia.
Romanovsky warned that if Petrova is sent back, she could face immediate arrest due to her previous vocal opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He described her detention as not only unnecessary but unjust.
CNN’s investigation uncovered that over 340 students, faculty, and researchers have had their visas revoked this year alone, reinforcing a troubling trend within the immigration system.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed last month that the State Department, under his direction, revoked over 300 visas, with a majority being student visas.
Initially, high-profile cases typically involved individuals accused of terrorism-related activities, such as Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained after pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University.
However, immigration attorneys are now observing a surge in student deportation threats tied to relatively minor offenses and sometimes without any clear justification.
The increased scrutiny of foreign nationals affiliated with elite American universities aligns with the Trump administration’s broader immigration enforcement policies, which have included the broad categorization of certain migrants as gang members, resulting in expedited deportations.
According to Jeff Joseph, the president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, existing tools within immigration law are being applied in a manner that breeds mass panic and chaos.
He suggested that the administration’s tactics seem designed to discourage students from seeking proper legal counsel, encouraging many to leave the country due to fear of potential detainment.
In the wake of these revocations, many individuals associated with colleges are facing possible deportation.
On April 3, protests erupted outside federal court as lawyers for Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University, sought legal recourse against her detention by immigration authorities.
A visa, which allows individuals to enter the US legally, is not uncommon for students to have revoked for various reasons, according to immigration attorney David Wilson.
However, he drew a clear distinction between the revocation of a visa and the forcible expulsion of individuals already present in the US, which he characterized as fundamentally different.
Wilson illustrated this point by comparing a visa to the key for a car, noting that while it starts the process, forcing someone out of a vehicle in motion is a much more drastic action.
The disparity is also significant in the lawsuit recently filed by Xiaotian Liu, a Chinese graduate researcher from Dartmouth.
Liu has been studying in the US since 2016 and has asked a court for a temporary restraining order to prevent the government from expelling him.
Though his attorneys acknowledge the State Department’s right to revoke his F-1 student visa, they argue that this does not grant ICE the authority to immediately expel him, especially given that he received no explanation for the revocation.
In court filings, Liu’s attorneys emphasized that he has not committed any crime or violation, further stressing the lack of justification for his treatment.
A federal judge in New Hampshire granted Liu a temporary restraining order, and CNN has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment on his case.
Immigration arrests are frequently happening suddenly and without warning, according to legal experts.
On March 27, University of Minnesota graduate student Doğukan Günaydin was detained by ICE due to a past drunk driving conviction.
A Homeland Security official informed CNN that his visa revocation was not recorded until hours after he was in custody, as he was on his way to class at the time.
While driving under the influence can indeed be grounds for visa revocation, Wilson noted that he had never seen such an action resulting in immediate expulsion.
Following Günaydin’s detention, protests were organized, with demonstrators marching through Minneapolis in response.
In many instances, the Department of Homeland Security has publicly touted its efforts to deport students and faculty, yet visa revocation processes, which are managed by the State Department, have been characterized by their lack of transparency.
A spokesperson for the State Department remarked to CNN, “Due to privacy considerations and visa confidentiality, we generally will not comment on Department actions concerning specific cases.”
According to a government report, more than 1.5 million individuals were residing in the US under student visas issued by the Department of Homeland Security in 2023.
The State Department indicates that its Exchange Visitor Program provides opportunities for around 300,000 foreign visitors from 200 countries and territories each year.
As court cases become a necessary recourse for many students seeking clarity on their status, the lack of government transparency often aggravates their situations.
In Khalil’s case, it was only through legal action that the government offered insights into his visa revocation, which stemmed from his previous employment with the British Embassy in Beirut and an unpaid internship with the UN agency dealing with Palestinian refugees.
By the time a hearing was scheduled for him, Khalil had already been moved more than a thousand miles away to a detention center in Louisiana.
Universities have often been left uninformed about the visa revocations of their students, with prominent institutions like the University of Texas at Austin, Stanford University, and UCLA reporting that they only learned of revoked visas upon reviewing a governmental database.
Many institutions discovered these changes without any prior explanation from the government.
UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk was among those expressing dismay at the lack of communication, noting that termination notices indicated all revocations were due to violations of the individual’s visa program.
As the situation evolves, more students are discovering their visa revocations without further action being taken.
Conversely, others have been taken into custody with clear intentions to facilitate their deportation.
With the Department of Homeland Security making highly visible efforts to detain students, many, including Sarah Spreitzer from the American Council on Education, expressed concerns about the legitimacy of the actions taken against legal students.
She highlighted that the quick removals are typically reserved for cases where security issues are evident.
Amid this tumultuous climate, the feeling of anxiety is palpable across the international student community.
One freshman student on a visa, who remained anonymous for fear of retaliation, voiced feelings of unease due to the unpredictability surrounding their legal status.
They stated, “We feel anxiety because we don’t know what’s going to happen. People could be targeted without being related to something, you know?”
The government’s approach has often suggested that individuals notified of their revoked visas should self-deport voluntarily, rather than contest their deportations in court and risk detainment.
To streamline this process, Customs and Border Protection recently amended its online application, previously known as CBP One, to allow individuals to inform the government of their decision to leave the country voluntarily.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem touted this new initiative, stating that it offers opportunities for individuals to leave on their terms, emphasizing that failure to comply would lead to punitive deportation without the possibility of return.
The financial burden accompanying a final order of removal is significant, with the DHS warning that immigrants could be fined $998 per day for overstaying their status post-revocation.
In a stark portrayal of the situation, individual accounts highlight the harsh realities facing those at risk of deportation.
Momodou Taal, who had been directed to turn himself over to immigration custody while seeking court relief, expressed his loss of faith in safety as he navigated life in the US.
Taal, speaking to CNN in November 2023, said, “I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted.”
As immigration cases crawl their way through the judicial system, concerns are mounting around the speed and volatility of deportation processes for individuals who were previously in the US legally.
Wilson, whose legal clients include those who have naturalized as citizens in the past decade, revealed that many now worry about the implications of seemingly minor infractions, stating, “I have individuals who naturalized 10 years ago asking if they have a parking ticket, can they travel?”
This climate of uncertainty and fear has left many individuals feeling terrorized as they grapple with the notion that even a slight interaction with law enforcement could unravel their lives in the United States.
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