A US judge granted asylum to a Chinese whistleblower who was raided by ICE

When Guan Heng read 2020 BuzzFeed News Report China is building massive prisons to hold tens of thousands of prisoners. Ethnic-minority Uighur, He decided to go and see for himself.

Guan, a YouTube employee who lived in Henan, China, drove in alone Xinjiang province in October 2021 and used a telephoto lens to document the hidden camps, which human rights organizations have claimed. as many one million Uighurs.

The footage he takes sets off a wild series of events.He fled China, sailed to the U.S. via Ecuador and the Bahamas, then claimed asylum and was raided by Immigration Customs and Border Protection (ICE) last summer.

Now, five years after his story began, a US judge has granted Guan’s asylum claim.

Guan’s lawyer, Chen Chuangchung, said: “He … testified strongly, persuasively to prove what happened to him, why he left China, why he did those things. As it happens Host Nil Kӧksal.

‘He had to do something.’

Before all this happened, Guan, an avid traveler, spent 2019 in Xinjiang where he noticed “very strange things,” the lawyer said.

“He saw firsthand how different the situation in Xinjiang was from the interior of China, how many men and police or military forces were on the streets,” Chen said.

Xinjiang is home to the majority of China’s Uyghur population, a predominantly Muslim minority. According to human rights organizations They are subject to extensive surveillance, detention and forced labor.

At the time, Guan lacked context to explain what he had seen, his lawyer said.

Then, in the depths of the COVD-19 lockdown, he found it. Last made, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative series from BuzzFeed News. Using satellite imagery and interviews with former Uyghur prisoners, it details China’s efforts to expand mass detention camps in Xinjiang.

“He thought he had to do something,” Chen said. This is how he made his decision: I want to go back to Xinjiang to make videos about the camps.

His footage appears to corroborate BuzzFeed’s report, showing massive facilities being built in the Xinjiang desert, cities and military bases.

Although he published the footage, fearing it would be intercepted by Chinese authorities, he took the footage and flew to Ecuador, where Chinese tourists can travel without a visa, then traveled 23 hours to the Bahamas.

There, he uploaded the clips to YouTube before boarding another ferry to Miami. Apply for US asylum upon arrival in the US.

In Wednesday’s hearing, Guan was asked to film the facilities where he was detained and whether he intended to release the video just days before he arrived in the United States to file an asylum claim. He said that was not his intention.

“I sympathize with the persecuted Uyghurs,” Guan told the court through an interpreter, speaking via video link from the Broome County Correctional Facility.

The Chinese government has long denied allegations of rights abuses in Xinjiang. The camps, he says, are not prisons, but rather vocational training programs to help local residents learn employable skills while rooting out radical ideas.

‘Detention without bond’ in ICE raids

Chen said his client lived in the U.S. for four years until someone checked his asylum claim.

Then, last August, ICE came knocking.

Guan lived with roommates in New York, his attorney said, and that’s what ICE wanted from the warrant when they raided his home.

When they asked him how he came to America, Heng told the truth. The lawyer called the case “bailable detention”.

The Department of Homeland Security argued that Guan, who crossed the border illegally, should be taken to Uganda.

US President Donald Trump’s administration frequently deports people to countries where they cannot leave, a practice upheld by the US Supreme Court in July.

Guan’s arrest was triggered The response of human rights defendersas well American politicians He said his recording helped him provide the evidence he needed to pass legislation banning goods from Xinjiang by 2021.

On Wednesday, Immigration Judge Charles Oland told the court that he found Guan to be a credible witness and that he was legally eligible for asylum.

Noting that the Chinese government has inquired about Guan’s whereabouts and past activities, the family is right to fear retaliation if Guan is sent back.

The decision was a rare breakthrough for asylum seekers since Trump’s return to office.

Asylum approval drops to 10 percent by 2025. Between 2010 and 2024, it is down 28 percent.

Still waiting for release

Despite his victory, Guan remained in prison.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has 30 days to appeal the decision. Ouslander urged DHS to make its decision soon.

DHS did not respond to CBC’s request for comment.