A US immigration judge granted asylum to Chinese national Guan Heng, ruling he faces persecution if returned to China after exposing alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang and finding his testimony credible.
A US immigration judge on Wednesday granted asylum to a Chinese national who exposed alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang, ruling that he faces a well-founded fear of persecution if returned to China.
The decision allows Guan Heng, 38, to remain in the United States after the court found him to be a credible witness who had established legal eligibility for asylum. Guan has been in US custody since August, after being swept up in an immigration enforcement operation under the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.
Judge Charles Ouslander, delivering the ruling in Napanoch, New York, said Guan was justified in fearing retaliation from Chinese authorities. He noted that police in China had questioned Guan’s family and sought information about his activities and whereabouts.
Guan applied for asylum after arriving illegally in the United States in 2021. The Department of Homeland Security had initially sought to deport him to Uganda, but dropped the plan in December after the case drew public attention and concern on Capitol Hill, according to the Associated Press.
Guan secretly filmed detention facilities in Xinjiang in 2020, adding to a growing body of evidence cited by activists who say as many as one million ethnic minorities, particularly Uyghurs, have been detained in the region. Beijing has repeatedly denied allegations of abuse, saying the facilities are vocational training centres.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Guan rejected suggestions that he filmed the facilities to bolster an asylum claim. “I sympathized with the Uyghurs who were persecuted,” Guan told the court through a translator, speaking by video link from the Broome County Correctional Facility.
Guan said he knew he could not publish the footage safely while remaining in China. In an interview with The Associated Press, he described leaving the country through Hong Kong before travelling to Ecuador, the Bahamas and eventually Florida, where he arrived by boat in October 2021.
“I didn’t know whether I would survive the boat trip,” Guan said, explaining that he wanted to ensure the footage would be seen. Most of the videos were released on YouTube before he reached the United States.
After the footage became public, Chinese police questioned Guan’s father three times, he told the judge.
Guan’s lawyer, Chen Chuangchuang, called the case a textbook example of why asylum should exist, arguing that the United States had both a moral and legal obligation to protect him. DHS has 30 days to file an appeal, and Guan was not immediately released.
