US drops plan to deport Chinese man who helped expose abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, activists say | American news
The Department of Homeland Security has abandoned plans to deport a Chinese national who entered the country illegally, two human rights activists said, after his plight raised public fears that if deported the man would be punished by Beijing for helping to expose human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.
Rayhan Asat, a human rights lawyer who helped with the case, said Guan Heng’s lawyer received a letter from the ministry announcing its decision to withdraw its request to send Guan to Uganda. Asat said she now expects Guan’s asylum case to “go smoothly and favorably.”
Zhou Fengsuo, executive director of the China human rights group, also confirmed Monday that the administration had decided not to deport Guan. “We are really happy,” Zhou said.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) database lists Guan, 38, as a detainee.
His legal team is working to secure his release on bail from an ICE detention center in New York, Zhou and Asat said.
In 2020, Guan secretly filmed detention centers in Xinjiang, which activists say were used to lock up up to 1 million members of the region’s ethnic minorities, particularly Uighurs. Beijing has denied allegations of rights abuses and says it has set up vocational training programs to help local residents learn job skills while eliminating radical thinking.
Knowing he could not release the video footage while in China, Guan left the mainland in 2021 for Hong Kong, then flew to Ecuador, which at the time did not require visas for Chinese nationals. He then traveled to the Bahamas, where he bought a small inflatable boat and an outboard motor before heading to Florida, according to the non-governmental organization Human Rights in China.
After nearly 23 hours at sea, Guan reached the coast of Florida, the group said, and his video footage from the detention centers was posted on YouTube, providing further evidence of rights abuses in Xinjiang, the rights group said.
But Guan was quickly doxxed and his family back in China was summoned by state security authorities, the group said.
Guan sought asylum and moved to a small town outside of Albany, New York, where he tried to lead a quieter life, the group said, until he was arrested by ICE agents in August.
Public support for Guan, including in Congress, has increased in recent weeks after Zhou’s group went public with his case. Before Guan appeared in court earlier this month, U.S. lawmakers called for providing him with safe haven.
“Guan Heng took risks in documenting the concentration camps in Xinjiang, which are part of the CCP’s genocide against the Uyghurs,” Congressional Human Rights Commission Tom Lantos said on social media platform X, referring to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). “Now in the United States, he faces deportation to China, where he would likely be persecuted. He should have every chance of remaining in a place of refuge.”
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on CCP, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem urging her to release Guan and approve his asylum request.
Krishnamoorthi wrote that the United States “has a moral responsibility to defend the victims of human rights violations in Xinjiang, as well as the courageous individuals who are taking immense personal risks to expose these violations to the world.”
