A federal judge has ruled that the government improperly revoked the visa of a Harvard University researcher accused of smuggling frog embryos into the country in her luggage last year.
Kseniia Petrova, a Russian citizen, was detained in February 2025 at Boston’s Logan International Airport after she returned from Paris and failed to tell customs agents about the research samples.
Her lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, has said those kinds of customs violations normally carry a fine of up to $500 and possible forfeiture of the items.
But in this case, U.S. Customs and Border Protection revoked Petrova’s visa and she spent four months in detention before being released on bail in June. She was charged with smuggling that month.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Christina Reiss in Vermont ruled that the government unlawfully canceled Petrova’s J-1 visa. Reiss said the government failed to cite any authority allowing Customs and Border Protection officers to cancel the visa for failing to declare the embryos.
“The undisputed facts reveal that Ms. Petrova’s visa was impermissibly canceled because of the frog embryo samples and for no other reason,” Reiss ruled.
Romanovsky, Petrova’s attorney, praised the decision.
The “decision marks an important step toward correcting what should never have happened in the first place,” Romanovsky said in a statement. He said the ruling shows that “as broad as CBP’s authority is at the border, its actions cannot be arbitrary or capricious.”
The Justice Department declined to comment. CBP did not immediately respond to questions about the ruling.
Romanovsky said Petrova has been back in her Harvard lab since January after successfully petitioning the court for the right to return to work. But immigration proceedings and the criminal case remain ongoing.
In the criminal case, U.S. Magistrate Judge Judith G. Dein in Massachusetts wrote in an April 1 order that evidence suggests the government brought the felony smuggling charges only after Petrova challenged her detention.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Massachusetts contended that it found a text exchange wherein another researcher asked Petrova how she planned to pass the samples through customs. She allegedly replied: “No plan yet. I won’t be able to swallow them.”
Dein noted that a government official testified that there was some dispute about whether the embryos constituted biological products or merchandise that needed to be declared. And she said the evidence so far suggests that “Petrova’s actions at Logan would not normally have resulted in felony criminal charges.”
Dein also noted that the U.S. attorney indicated Petrova’s status as a Harvard researcher played a role in the decision to charge her with a felony. The Trump administration has repeatedly attacked Harvard with lawsuits, investigations, and efforts to suspend grants and contracts awarded from multiple agencies; targeted the school’s ability to enroll international students; and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status.
Massachusetts authorities filed a brief last year arguing Petrova’s detention was part of a broader pattern of the Trump administration attacking foreign students and academics for “non-existent or minor offenses.”
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