An Indonesian father of an infant with special needs, who was detained by federal agents at his hospital workplace in Minnesota after his student visa was secretly revoked, will remain in custody after an immigration judge ruled Thursday that his case can proceed.
Judge Sarah Mazzie denied a motion to dismiss the case against Aditya Wahyu Harsono on humanitarian grounds, according to his attorney. Harsono, 33, was arrested four days after his visa was revoked without notice. He is scheduled for another hearing on 1 May.
“His wife has been in a state of shock and exhaustion,” Sarah Gad, Harsono’s lawyer, said. “The Department of Homeland Security has weaponized the immigration system to serve just an entirely different purpose, which is to instill fear.”
Harsono, a supply-chain manager at a hospital in Marshall,Minnesota, who is married to a US citizen, was surprised by authorities in his workplace basement on 27 March. Gad said that Harsono was detained without clear explanation and interrogated for hours.
Harsono’s wife, Peyton, called Gad in a panic after she received a call from human resources at the hospital. Two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents, dressed in plain clothes, had shown up and instructed the staff to stage a fake meeting in the basement so they could apprehend him, according to Gad.
Hospital staff were distraught but felt forced to comply.
“He unsuspectedly walks in, smiling, and then they just pull out their handcuffs and forcibly detain him, pushing against the wall, start frisking him, and stripping all of his belongings,” Gad said.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Guardian.
Harsono was brought to the Kandiyohi County Jail, where he is still detained, according to theIce detainee locator.
He told the Ice agents that his F-1 student visa was valid through June 2026, and that he had a pending green-card application based on his marriage to a citizen, but that he had been issued a notice to appear in court stating that he had overstayed his visa.
His attorney said that as of 28 March, the day after his arrest, his F-1 visa was still active. 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. He had traveled internationally and returned multiple times to Indonesia since the conviction without incident.
The day before Harsono’s bond hearing, DHS disclosed their evidence against him. Besides stating that his visa had been revoked for the misdemeanor graffiti conviction, for which he paid $100 in restitution, they also mentioned an arrest from 2021 during a protest over the murder of George Floyd. That charge was dismissed.
Harsono is Muslim and frequently posts on social media in support of humanitarian relief for Gaza. He also runs a small non-profit, which sells art and merchandise, with proceeds going to organizations aiding Gaza.
His wife and eight-month-old daughter, who has special needs, are distraught by his arrest, Gad said. After the judge granted Harsono a $5,000 bond on 10 April, the Minnesota Freedom Fund had been en route to pay it. But DHS immediately filed a notice to appeal the bond decision, which triggered an automatic stay, meaning Harsono had to remain in custody. Gad said this type of move is rare, usually only seen when a judge grants bond to someone charged with violent or serious crimes.
“You never involve stays of an immigration judge’s bond order for a minor conviction when somebody’s on their way to becoming a green-card holder,” she said.
Gad is preparing to file a federal petition and a temporary restraining order against DHS.
Inan appeal for helpon GoFundMe, Harsono’s wife explained that her husband had been fired from his job while in detention and now the family is “in danger of losing our apartment” and they “no longer have health insurance”.
The Minnesota Nurses Associationcondemnedthe hospital worker’s arrest and restated its position that “nurses should not and will not serve any role in immigration enforcement” and its hope that “all hospital employees will also reject a role in assisting Ice”.
Harsono’s case comes amid a wave of reports ofstudent visas being revoked under the Trump administration’s new executive policy. The actions by the federal government to terminate students’ legal status have left hundreds of scholars at risk of detention and deportation.
At least 901 students at 128 colleges and universities have had their visas revoked or their legal statuses terminated since mid-March, according to an Associated Press review of university statements and correspondence with school officials.
In some high-profile cases, including the detention of the former Columbia University graduate studentMahmoud Khalil, the Trump administration has argued it should be allowed to deport noncitizens over involvement in pro-Palestinian activism it casts as antisemitic. But in the vast majority of visa revocations, colleges say there is no indication that affected students had a role in protests.