An immigration judge has found the U.S. government’s initial deportation case against Kseniia Petrova, a Russian-born Harvard scientist held in ICE detention, to be legally deficient, her attorney said, raising questions about whether the case can move forward.

The preliminary immigration hearing, held in Jena, Louisiana, included three trial attorneys and a deputy chief counsel from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Petrova’s attorney Greg Romanovsky described their presence as unusual for an early-stage proceeding.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s purse was stolen with thousands in cash on Sunday night at a restaurant in Washington D.C., multiple sources from the agency confirmed to Fox News Digital.

The purse was taken by a White man wearing a mask, and the bag contained $3,000 in cash as well as personal documents including her passport, keys, driver's license and a DHS badge, an agency spokesperson confirmed. 

President Donald Trump’s administration lashed back at Harvard University on Wednesday, with the Department of Homeland Security cutting over $2.7 million in grants and threatening to cancel all student visas, according to a press release obtained exclusively by The Free Press. The move comes two days after Harvard refused to agree to a series of demands by the administration, and Harvard’s president Alan Garber said that the university “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

The Trump administration released documents Wednesday that revealed new details in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man deported to El Salvador a month ago in what a government lawyer called an “administrative error.” 

The documents were released after weeks of pressure on the government to prove its contention that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang. The Trump administration sent him to a notorious megaprison in the Central American country as part of its promised deportation program of alleged criminals.  

The wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador, sought a restraining order against her husband alleging domestic violence, according to a 2021 court filing posted on social media by the Department of Homeland Security.

In its post, DHS officials wrote, “Kilmar Abrego Garcia had a history of violence and was not the upstanding ‘Maryland Man’ the media has portrayed him as.”

The US government has threatened to ban Harvard University from enrolling foreign students, after the institution said it would not bow to demands from Donald Trump's administration.

The White House has demanded the oldest university in the US make changes to hiring, admissions and teaching practices which it says will help fight antisemitism on campus.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday accused the Ivy League school of "threatening national security" and "bending the knee to antisemitism".

The deported El Salvadoran man at the center of an intense court battle was flagged in 2022 by the Biden administration as a "suspect alien" who was possibly involved in “human smuggling/trafficking” after a traffic stop hundreds of miles from his Maryland home, according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents reviewed by Just the News.

When Massachusetts resident Nicole Micheroni received an email on Friday from the federal government telling her to leave the country, she was baffled.

"At first I thought it was for a client, but I looked really closely and the only name on the email was mine," said Micheroni. "So it said my parole status had been terminated and I should leave the country within seven days."

But the 40-year-old is a U.S. citizen, born in Newton and raised in Sharon.

Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Wednesday it will begin screening immigrants' social media accounts for signs of antisemitic activity, which could be used as grounds to deny applications for immigration benefits.

The move was quickly met with criticism from free speech advocates, who argued the government should not be using its authority to chill the freedom of speech of its residents, including immigrants who are in the country on a visa or green card.