WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Homeland Security has abandoned plans to deport a Chinese citizen who entered the country illegally, two human rights activists said Monday, after his plight raised public concerns that if deported the man would be punished by Beijing for helping expose human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.
Rayhan Asat, a human rights lawyer assisting in the case, said Guan Heng’s lawyers received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security stating that it had decided to withdraw its request to send Guan Heng to Uganda. Assat said she now expected Guan’s asylum application to “go smoothly and smoothly.”
Zhou Fengsuo, executive director of the China Human Rights Advocacy Group, also confirmed the government’s decision not to expel Mr. Guan. “We’re really happy,” Zhou said.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement database lists Guan, 38, as a detainee.
Both Zhou and Assat said his legal team is working to secure his release from ICE detention in New York.
Guan in 2020 secretly filmed detention facilities in Xinjiang that activists say are used to imprison up to 1 million members of ethnic minorities in the region, particularly Uighurs. Beijing denies accusations of rights abuses and says it has launched vocational training programs to help local residents learn job skills while rooting out radical ideas.
Knowing he could not publish the video in China, Guan left the mainland for Hong Kong in 2021 and then flew to Ecuador, which at the time did not require visas for Chinese citizens. He then traveled to the Bahamas, where he purchased a small inflatable boat and an outboard motor before setting off for Florida, according to the NGO Human Rights in China.
The group said Mr Guan arrived on the Florida coastline after a nearly 23-hour sea voyage and a video of him taken in a detention facility was posted on YouTube, providing further evidence of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
But Guan was quickly doxed and his family in China was summoned by state security, the group said.
The group said Guan sought asylum and moved to a small town outside Albany, New York, trying to live a quieter life there until being detained by ICE agents in August.
Public support for Guan has grown in recent weeks, including in Congress, after Zhou’s organization publicized Guan’s case. U.S. lawmakers called for Guan to be given a safe haven ahead of his court appearance earlier this month.
“Guan Heng took risks to document the concentration camps in Xinjiang as part of the Chinese Communist Party’s genocide against the Uyghurs,” Congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission wrote on X.com, referring to the abbreviation for the Communist Party of China. “Now in the United States, he faces deportation to China, where he may be persecuted. He should be given every opportunity to stay in a refuge.”
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on Chinese Communist Party, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem urging her to release Mr. Guan and approve his asylum request.
The United States “has a moral responsibility to support the victims of human rights abuses in Xinjiang and the brave individuals who take great personal risks to expose these abuses to the world,” Krishnamoorthy wrote.
