Washington– The Department of Homeland Security has dropped its plan to deport a Chinese national who entered the country illegally, two human rights activists said Monday, after his ordeal raised public concerns that Beijing would punish the man, if deported, for helping reveal his identity. Human rights violations in China’s Xinjiang region region.
Rehan Asat, a human rights lawyer who helped with the case, said Guan Heng’s lawyer received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security stating its decision to withdraw its request to send Guan to Uganda. Asat said she now expects Goan’s asylum case to go “smoothly and positively.”
Zhou Fengsu, executive director of China Human Rights Advocacy Group, also confirmed the administration’s decision 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 ICE database lists Joan, 38, as a detainee.
Both Chu and Asat said his legal team is working to secure his release from the ICE detention center in New York on bail.
Guan was secretly filmed in 2020 Detention facilities in XinjiangWhich activists say has been used to imprison up to a million members of ethnic minorities in the region, especially the Uyghurs. Beijing denies allegations of human rights abuses and says it runs vocational training programs to help local residents learn employable skills while rooting out extremist ideas.
Knowing that he could not release the video footage while in China, Guan left the mainland in 2021 for Hong Kong and then traveled 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 outboard motor before setting off for Florida, according to the human rights NGO China.
After nearly 23 hours at sea, Guan reached the Florida coast, according to the group, and his video footage of detention facilities was posted on YouTube, providing further evidence of rights violations in Xinjiang, the rights group said.
But Guan was soon questioned, and state security authorities summoned his family in China, the group said.
Guan sought asylum and moved to a small town outside Albany, New York, where he tried to live a quieter life until ICE agents arrested him in August, the group said.
Public support for Guan, including within Congress, has swelled in recent weeks after Zhou’s group announced his case. Before Guan appeared in court earlier this month, US lawmakers called for safe haven for him.
“Guan Heng has put himself at risk to document internment camps in Xinjiang, part of the CCP’s genocide against the Uyghurs,” the Tom Lantos Congressional Commission on Human Rights wrote on X.com, referring to the Chinese Communist Party by its acronym. “Now that he is in the United States, he faces deportation to China, where he will likely face persecution. He should have every opportunity to remain in a place of asylum.”
Rep. Raja Krishnamurthy of Illinois, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the CCP, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, urging her to release Guan and approve his asylum request.
The United States “has a moral responsibility to stand up for the victims of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, as well as the courageous individuals who take enormous personal risks to expose these abuses to the world,” Krishnamurthy wrote.