Harvard University Medicine School, Photo: Kevin Galvin / Alamy / Profimedia Images
The administration of US President Donald Trump intends to expel a Russian researcher at Harvard University, who has fled abroad for the fear of political persecutions, her lawyer told AFP.
Ksenia Petrova, a researcher at the Harvard Medical Faculty, was arrested by the Customs and Immigration (ICE) service in February at Boston airport, while returning from a trip to Paris, because he did not declare the biological samples he had in his luggage. American customs agents say it has tried to enter the US embryos.
The administration then informed her that her visa was canceled and that she will be expelled to Russia.
“It is true, the government is trying to expel Ksenia,” her lawyer, Gregori Romanovski, confirmed in an e-mail transmitted AFP on Wednesday. “It will have the opportunity to defend its asylum application and we do not expect a decision on its expulsion to be taken in the near future,” he added.
The researcher's lawyer emphasizes that it has legally immigrated to the US
According to the text of the complaint against the researcher, she told the authorities that she is afraid she would be arrested if she would return to Russia, after participating in political protests.
“We will continue to fight for the freedom of Ksenia and for its immigrant status in the United States,” Romanovski added.
Since Donald Trump's return to the White House in January, his administration has launched a campaign to suppress illegal immigration, using what critics say they are arbitrary arrests and processing. The administration also revoked the visas and threatened to expel foreign students who participated in pro-Palestine protests.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has reduced the financing of several top universities, including Harvard, accusing them of flowing on their campuses of student protests against the bombing made by Israel on the Gaza Strip.
