She Worked in a Harvard Lab to Reverse Aging, Until ICE Jailed Her

The article left me with a couple questions - is cancelling a visa for not declaring something like frog embryos normal protocol? Does ICE have evidence that not declaring them was intentional? In any case, I really hope she doesn't get deported. If it was just a mistake, this seems like an abuse of power.

> Such an infraction is normally considered minor, punishable with a fine of up to $500.

I'm also wondering how you are supposed to declare something like this. They don't pass out those customs forms on flights from Europe anymore, you just go through immigration and the officer asks whatever questions they feel like. In my case the only question was "did you buy anything".

Normally, when you are leaving the baggage claim area, there are two customs corridors - green one for people who have nothing to declare, and red for people who wish to make a customs declaration.

It's hard to know exactly what happened here, but it sounds like she was confronted before she even got to that step.

> Then, as she headed toward the baggage claim, a Border Patrol officer approached her and asked to search her suitcase.

I'm sure there is something she was supposed to do if her lawyer is acknowledging she violated some regulation, I just have no idea what it would be.

Typically, the customs declaration is filled out on the airplane. This can be done through a mobile app (which most frequent travelers do), in which case, customs might have it before you've even left the plane.

If it's done on paper, this is done at the passport check, before you've picked up your checked luggage, and well before picking a customs lane.

I've certainly been randomly chosen for a screening, and when that happened, a customs agent went up to me (deliberately) shortly after I got my luggage. I forget why, but they have flags for suspicious behavior. I think it might have been because I came back with one more bag than I left with, or some intermediate destination.

There are also, in some airports, customs dogs sniffing things between luggage pickup and customs who can also flag for screens.

So none of this sounds too unusual to me, except for the final step: being shipped off to a detention center. I've never brought in anything improper, but I know people who came to the US with illicit food. The outcome was:

1) A rather serious fine

2) Being screened literally every time they passed into the US

The second was more obnoxious. Every time they came into the US for at least the next half-decade, customs would unpack their bags.

That's a pretty good description of what happens at most airports I've been through.

> So none of this sounds too unusual to me, except for the final step: being shipped off to a detention center.

It's because her J-1 visa was cancelled. I am not sure if that was warranted or how threatening frog embryos are, so can't judge there. But if the J-1 visa is cancelled, the person usually has to exit the US and re-apply. She didn't necessarily lose her status as a J-1 student, but she may need a new visa. So the procedure here would have been to put her on a plane to Russia. However they asked her if it would be dangerous for her to be there, and it is, so she got sent to a detention center instead.

It's worth considering how remarkably broken that system is. The end result is detention or deportation of a highly skilled professional with ongoing employment in the US. That's not someone who would typically be considered a flight risk or an overstay risk.

Requiring one to return home to reapply also never made any sense for student visas, at least when it comes to graduate level research. Academics at state funded institutions who are paid off of government grants aren't generally people you need to worry about sticking around if their visa is denied. Neither is it clear why you would ever want to deny a visa to such a person to begin with.