She's Researching Aging. ICE Has Her Behind Bars

Russian scientist Kseniia Petrova writes for the New York Times from a Louisiana detention center
Posted May 14, 2025 8:44 AM CDT
She's Researching Aging. ICE Has Her Behind Bars
Stock photo.   (Getty Images/MattGush)

When Kseniia Petrova fled Russia two years ago, she did so because she didn't feel she could freely and safely carry out her work as a scientist there, especially after she was arrested for taking part in a protest. She landed at Harvard Medical School, and her work on aging, she writes for the New York Times, is "what motivates me to wake up every morning." However, Petrova hasn't been in her lab since February, when she was scooped up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a Boston airport after returning from a vacation to France and whisked off to a detention center in Louisiana. The alleged infraction that led to her detention and revocation of her visa? Not filling out a customs declaration form for frog embryos meant for research that she had packed in her luggage.

Petrova briefly notes her current situation—crammed into a dorm-style room with 100 other women, with no access to computers and limited phone use—and describes the other detainees as "friendly, kind people" with all kinds of "unique stories," not the "dangerous criminals" they're often portrayed as being. However, she spends much of her column promoting her Harvard research, which she hopes will lead to a better quality of life for people as they age. At the center of her work is the highly specialized NoRI microscope, "the only one like it in the world," allowing scientists to analyze the chemical makeup of cells in an astonishingly precise manner, without damaging the samples. Now however, "my colleagues tell me that since my detention, the work with NoRI has ground to a halt," Petrova writes. A judge will hear a petition challenging her detention on Wednesday. More here. (More mass deportations stories.)

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