Suguru Onda, a Japanese doctorate student at Brigham Young University, had his visa abruptly revoked a few weeks ago after living in the United States for six years. He was given 15 days to return to Japan or else he would be deported. In addition to Onda’s recent case, the U.S. government recently revoked the visas of over two dozen international students.
The only legal issues Onda ever encountered were two speeding tickets and a catch-and-release fishing citation from a church outing in 2019. Adam Crayk, Onda’s immigration attorney, said they had won the lawsuit to reinstate his visa in an Instagram post from April 19.
This news came only minutes after the federal lawsuit was officially filed. However, immigration officials did not contact Onda or his attorney directly; instead, Brigham Young University learned about the visa reinstatement first. Crayk said it was “reinstated as if it was never revoked.”
Crayk suspects the reason for Onda’s visa revocation was an AI software that flagged his fishing citation, although Onda, who researches AI and technology development, did not blame the AI. He said AI isn’t perfect and that it makes mistakes. It was something that humans should have caught.
