His attorney said that as of 28 March, the day after his arrest, his F-1 visa was still active. [Harsono’s lawyer] Gad said the government revoked it without any notice to him, and then claimed he had overstayed. The revocation was backdated to 23 March and allegedly based on his 2022 misdemeanor conviction for graffitiing a semi-truck trailer. Gad said that this is not a deportable offense under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The completely unethical (and hopefully illegal, but I’m not familiar enough with US immigration law) behaviour by the government here clearly has one purpose: intimidate immigrants to get them to leave voluntarily.