[Lewisham]

Yeah, as someone who has held an F1 in the past, the US authorities take a very dim view of getting income while you are here without authorization. I think actually committing misdemeanor crime is of less consequence to your legal status than taking money. We were warned about it very specifically.

I heard of someone who was deported because he was painting fences for some disposable income. My guess is that the OP actually needs an immigration lawyer, not a civil claims lawyer (or whatever they are called).

It's a sticky situation, and likely depends on whether the money was being posted to a PayPal account with a US or Venezuelan address/bank account, and whether he actually performed any work on turn.js while in the US. My guess is that if PayPal are asking for the SSN, he tied it to the USA, which is going to be a problem.