The United States say that the court plans to expel the scientist to Russia

Government lawyers told a federal judge on Wednesday that the Trump administration intended to expel a scientist from Harvard in Russia, a country she fled in 2022, despite her fear of being arrested there for her protest against the Russian war in Ukraine.

Kseniia Petrova, researcher at the Harvard Medical School, has been owned in an immigration detention center in Louisiana since February, when she has been detained at Boston airport for not having declared scientific samples which she was carrying in her luggage.

This is the first time that the government has officially expressed its plan to deport it to Russia.

During the hearing on Wednesday, Christina Reiss, chief judge of the Vermont’s United States district court, questioned government lawyers for their land to cancel Ms. Petrova’s visa and hold her. Judge Reiss then planned a release hearing on bail on May 28, potentially preparing the way for the release of Ms. Petrova.

The case drew the attention of elite scientists around the world and sent freshness through the community of international academics that surrounded Ms. Petrova in Harvard. Several dozen students and Harvard teachers went to Burlington, Vermont, for the audience.

“For each person he holds, thousands of others will be afraid to come to the country,” said Leo Gerden, a senior Harvard of Sweden.

Ms. Petrova was detained at Logan airport on February 16 when she came back from vacation in France, transporting with her frog embryo sections from an affiliation laboratory, at the request of her supervisor at Harvard.