They say they do: “Messages on her phone revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them. She knowingly broke the law and took deliberate steps to evade it.”
> The article left me with a couple questions - is cancelling a visa for not declaring something like frog embryos normal protocol?
A visa like J-1 can be cancelled at the port of entry for a variety of reasons. Doesn't mean she immediately loses her status. With a visa like that you're essentially at the mercy of the State Dept. You can still reply but you have to exit the US. The normal procedure would have been to immediately send her to Russia. The idea is, you go back to your home country and re-apply. But they didn't do that and "let her" stay in detention since Russia is a dangerous place for her.
I'd note that these are the same folks asserting people with no criminal records are convicted criminals.
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/04/nx-s1-5282379/trumps-mass-dep...
"In a press briefing last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked how many people arrested had a criminal record. She said, 'All of them, because they illegally broke our nation's laws, and, therefore, they are criminals, as far as this administration goes.' But Carlos came to the U.S. through a legal pathway, although the CBP One app he used was shut down by Trump as soon as he took office."
Oh of course, 100%
However when it comes to visa cancellations, from what I understand one is at the mercy of the port of entry officials. Any re-entry with that kind of a visa can trigger a review and the visa may be cancelled for a variety of reasons, not all criminal or proven criminal. I am not saying that's bad or good, it's just how the system works.
The next step is the person usually has to exit the US and re-apply for a visa. So procedurally she should have been put on a plane to Russia. But knowing what Russia looks like they asked her if she should be threatened there so she ended up in a detention center instead.
Like I mentioned in another comment, this was huge mistake from her employee to 1) send her any where, re-entries with these visas should be minimized, especially these days 2) asked her to bring any embryos or any such things.
Sounds suspiciously like "arrested for resisting arrest". Of course the actual meaning of the question is clearly "other than immigration law itself".
I don't think she was "arrested" to "pay for her crimes" so to speak. As in "ok, she was in jail for 10 days, now she learned her lesson and she gets the J-1 visa uncanceled". It's a bit of a different mechanism - the default action here is to be sent to Russia. She chose to stay here instead, even if it meant being in detention. I may be wrong, but I think she can always say "I am going back to Russia" and they'll let her.