An alleged George Floyd rioter arrested during unrest in Minnesota has now been taken into ICE custody and faces deportation to his native Indonesia.
Aditya Harsono learned his student visa had been revoked last month as he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at the hospital where he works.
Harsono, a 33 year-old father to a young child, was told a 2022 vandalism conviction for spray-painting a bridge and four trucks meant he’d been deemed a national security risk.
That saw his F-1 visa revoked without his knowledge.
He was also arrested during a night of unrest in Minneapolis in April 2021 to protest the police killings of George Floyd and another local black man called Daunte Wright.
Harsono, who is studying for a graduate degree, was accused of being part of an illegal gathering but never charged over the incident.
Harsono’s wife Peyton who is a US citizen, said that arrest had also been mentioned by ICE cops while explaining his arrest.
A judge has dismissed an initial attempt to get the case thrown out and Harsono is back in court on May 1 to challenge plans to deport him.
The year after he was arrested while protesting, Harsono went on a vandalism spree with a can of spray paint and was convicted of causing property damage.
But his attorney says that vandalism conviction is not a deportable offense.
‘I just wanna kiss my wife on her forehead, and hold my daughter as tight as I can,’ Harsono told the Star Tribune from Kandiyohi County jail where he is being held. ‘I wanna be there for my daughter.’
Indonesian hospital worker Aditya Harson is facing deportation after his US visa was secretly revoked over a vandalism conviction. Pictured: Harsono with his wife and daughter
He explained that he joined the George Floyd protest along with 1,000 other people to exercise his right to free speech.
‘I was scared to voice my opinion back in Indonesia,’ he said of his involvement. ‘Now, you know, I’m in America, I could do that now.’
The father-of-one has a green card application pending through his marriage.
But his hopes of living in American now lie in tatters and he could be deported as early as May 1.
‘There seems to be this trend recently where international students who have engaged in some type of activism or expressed, you know, political speech or have expressed, you know, support for Palestine – something along those lines – their student visas get revoked,’ Sarah Gad, Harsono’s attorney, told Fox9.
Harsono has lost his job as a hospital supply chain manager and his wife and child, who has special needs, are now at risk of losing their home, according to a GoFundMe.
‘Aditya is not just a student visa holder—he’s a husband, a father, and a vital part of our family,’ Peyton said.
‘We have an 8-month-old daughter who needs her dad. Every day she looks around for him. This has been deeply traumatic for all of us, especially her.
Harsono was arrested in 2021 for participating in a George Floyd protest but the charge of unlawful assembly was dropped
Peyton Harsono says she is now at risk of losing her home after her husband was fired from his job while in detention
‘As a mother, I am struggling to provide for her while enduring this overwhelming emotional and financial burden on my own.
‘We are in danger of losing our apartment, no longer have health insurance, along with other bills and necessities that are needed when caring for a baby.
‘The trauma of this separation is unbearable, not just for me and our child but for my husband as well.
‘He is experiencing severe emotional distress, and our family unit is suffering beyond measure. I am being torn apart living through this and watching my daughter, husband, and I be in so much emotional pain.’
A State Department memo revealed that Harsono’s visa revocation was requested over the 2022 property charge for which he served probation.
Harsono was initially charged with a felony, but it was down graded to a misdemeanor as part of a plea deal.
The Minnesota Nurses Association on Wednesday condemned the arrest.
‘The MNA Board of Directors reaffirms their position that nurses should not and will not serve any role in immigration enforcement,’ the association said in a statement.
Multiple international students have been taken into ICE custody in recent weeks.
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian man, was arrested last month over claims he was a danger to national security for leading pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University in New York.
Like Haronso, Khalil was in the process of applying for a green card when he was arrested.
And Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student at Tufts University in Boston, was filmed being seized on the street late last month.
She signed an op-ed at her student newspaper calling for Tufts bosses to condemn Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip as a genocide.
Ozturk also called on Tufts to back out of its investments in Israeli companies.
The Trump administration says Ozturk, who is currently in custody in Louisiana, represents a threat to national security but have refused to comment further.
They have argued that people in the US on visas or even green cards, which confer permanent residency, do not have the same First Amendment rights to free speech and expression as US citizens.
