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."
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.