#KseniiaPetrova’s lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, has said he was “blindsided” by the #smuggling charge, …“Less than 2 hours after the Vermont judge set a hearing on Kseniia’s release, she was suddenly transferred from #ICE to #criminal custody. This is not a coincidence. It is an attempt by the government to justify its outrageous & legally indefensible position that this #scientist working for the US on cures for #cancer & #aging #research has somehow become a danger to the community.”
#law #Trump

Hours later, the govt interrupted that process by unsealing #felony *#smuggling* charges against her. Leah B. Foley, #Trump’s #USattorney for Massachusetts, took the unusual step of releasing a video statement about the charges.

“The rule of law does not have a carve out for educated individuals with pedigree,” Foley weirdly said. “The US #visa that Ms. Petrova was given, which was revoked by customs officials because of her conduct, is a privilege, not a right.”

The #smuggling charges against #KseniiaPetrova came unexpectedly, & legal experts said the decision to bring #criminal charges at this stage in an #immigration case was unusual.

The charges were announced just as Petrova’s legal challenge to her #detention appeared to move in her favor. She was initially detained at the airport in Boston in Feb, after failing to declare frog embryos she was carrying into the country at the request of her #Harvard supervisor to use as scientific samples.

During the hearing, #KseniiaPetrova listened quietly as US Magistrate Judge Kayla D. McClusky read her the #criminal complaint in the *#smuggling* case, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in #prison. “Yes, I understand,” she said.

After her attorney expressed Petrova’s desire to be transferred to Massachusetts for further proceedings, Judge McClusky agreed to allow the transfer back to Boston.

#KseniiaPetrova, a #Harvard researcher from #Russia who has been fighting #deportation proceedings since Feb, will now face #felony *#smuggling* charges in Massachusetts, a federal judge in Louisiana said on Thurs.

Petrova made a brief court appearance Thurs morning via video from a jail in Monroe, LA, near the #ICE detention center where she has been held for nearly 3 months.

@Snowshadow

#CEUM

#CdnPol #CANpol #USpol
#CETA #InfoSec #Democracy #NationalSecurity
#Mercantilism

(4/n)

...commerce, and trade into directions different from how individuals in the market may have wanted to direct their own activities, the more it created incentives for “#Smuggling” – #BlackMarkets – to get around the controls."

The basics:

"#Mercantilism as a System of Protection

The attitude of mercantilism towards the means of supplying the wants of human beings, i.e., towards...

@Snowshadow

#CEUM

#CdnPol #CANpol #USpol
#CETA #InfoSec #Democracy #NationalSecurity
#Mercantilism

(3/n)

... of souvereign and autonomous states, while the #US will be impoverished by the economic fallout of the #TrumpTariffs. They constitue a #Mercantilist trade policy, which has historically been proven to be detrimental to its practitioners: it gives rise to #Smuggling and anarchy:

"The more the government’s #Mercantilist policies attempted to restrict and divert manufacturing,...