According to local media, officers from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security on Friday searched two homes owned by Wang Xiaofeng, a professor at Indiana University Bloomington.

The searches in the cities of Bloomington and Carmel were carried out under a court warrant, but authorities did not disclose the grounds for the operation, a report said, citing an FBI spokeswoman in the Indiana state capital.

The raids have left the Chinese-American scientific community bracing for a return of the politically charged investigations that upended academic collaboration under the first Donald Trump administration.

“‘China Initiative 2.0’ has always been a topic of discussion in the US,” the biologist said, referencing a policy launched under Trump in late 2018.