Washington
Chinese national who exposed rights abuses is freed from U.S. detention after granted asylum
WASHINGTON (AP) — Guan Heng, a Chinese national who exposed human rights abuses in his homeland, has been released from federal detention more than five months after being swept up in the Trump administration’s mass immigration enforcement operation.
Guan was released and reunited with his mother on Tuesday, nearly a week after being granted asylum by an immigration judge who determined that he faced a well-founded fear of persecution if sent back to China.
“I’m in a great mood,” Guan, 38, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I didn’t feel the excitement yesterday. I felt I was still in prison, but today many friends have come to see me.”
Guan, who is staying temporarily in Binghamton, New York, said he has not yet had time to think about what he will do in the longer term.
Hs mother, Luo Yun, who traveled to the U.S. from her home in Taiwan to support her son, said she finally felt relieved.
“For five and half months I didn’t sleep one good sleep, but today I feel assured,” Luo said.
It was a rare successful outcome for an asylum seeker since President Donald Trump returned to office. At one point in detention, Guan was faced with deportation to Uganda, but the Department of Homeland Security dropped the plan in December after his plight raised public concerns and attracted attention on Capitol Hill. DHS, which has 30 days to appeal the immigration judge’s Jan. 28 ruling, did not immediately respond to a request to confirm if it has decided not to appeal.
Rep. Ro Khanna, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said Guan should not have had to spend months in detention for the right outcome to be reached.
“His release is a reminder that the rule of law and our moral duty to protect those who expose human rights abuses go hand in hand,” Khanna said, vowing to press for transparency in similar cases.
Guan in 2020 secretly filmed detention facilities in Xinjiang, adding to a body of evidence of what activists say are widespread rights abuses in the Chinese region, where as many as 1 million members of ethnic minorities, especially the Uyghurs, have been locked up.
The Chinese government has denied allegations of rights abuses in Xinjiang, saying it runs vocational training programs to help local residents learn employable skills while rooting out radical thoughts. Beijing has silenced dissenting views on its practices in Xinjiang through a range of coercive means.
The State Department, while declining to comment on Guan’s case because of confidentiality rules, said it condemns the Chinese ruling party’s “genocide, religious persecution, and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and others in Xinjiang.”
During his asylum hearing last week, Guan said he didn’t set out to document the detention facilities Xinjiang so he could claim asylum in the United States. He said he sympathized with the persecuted Uyghurs and wanted to bear witness to their plight.
Guan knew he had to leave China if he wanted to publish the footage. He went first to Hong Kong and from there to Ecuador, where Chinese tourists could travel without a visa, and then to the Bahamas. He released most of his video footage on YouTube shortly before arriving in Florida by boat in October 2021.
Guan told the immigration judge he didn’t know whether he would survive the boat trip and wanted to make sure the footage would be seen.
Louisiana
New Orleans police say recruit detained by ICE had been verified
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The New Orleans Police Department is denying wrongdoing after one of its recruits was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which accused the city of violating federal immigration laws.
Federal agents last month arrested New Orleans police recruit Larry Temah, a 46-year-old Cameroonian national who had received a final order of removal signed by an immigration judge in December, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Temah remains in custody and awaits deportation.
Temah was in the department’s police academy when he was detained and was several months away from graduation. He had entered the U.S. in 2015 on a valid visitor visa and received conditional residency in 2016 after marrying a U.S. citizen. In 2022, his application for permanent residency was “denied due to fraud,” according to DHS.
“Criminal illegal aliens have no place in our communities — especially on our police forces,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin stated Tuesday.
But New Orleans Police Department spokesperson Reese Harper said Tuesday that DHS had made “misleading” statements about Temah’s case. The department had confirmed Temah’s employment eligibility through a DHS verification system and was never notified that ICE was seeking to detain Temah until the day of his arrest, he said.
“New Orleans is not a sanctuary city,” Harper said. “Any claim that NOPD knowingly violated the law is false.”
Harper stated that the NOPD had not given Temah a gun because he was still in the process of completing the police academy.
The clash between the city and federal authorities arises in the aftermath of Operation Catahoula Crunch, a sweeping immigration crackdown centered around New Orleans that launched in December. The operation appears to be on pause after federal agents were redirected to Minneapolis in early January.
President Donald Trump’s administration has repeatedly accused New Orleans of undermining federal immigration enforcement, and Louisiana passed legislation seeking to force the city to collaborate with ICE. The New Orleans Police Department has said immigration enforcement is a civil matter outside its jurisdiction.
Chief Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters last week that no issues with Temah’s legal status had emerged during the hiring process. Temah had lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years and had a valid driver’s license, Social Security card, and no criminal history, she added.
“We did the due diligence,” Kirkpatrick said during a Jan. 28 press conference.
DHS directed The Associated Press to its press release. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why Temah had been eligible for employment on ICE’s verification system or how he had engaged in fraud.
Temah could not be reached for comment. The New Orleans Police Department did not share information about Temah’s legal representation when asked and the Fraternal Order of Police in New Orleans did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Chinese national who exposed rights abuses is freed from U.S. detention after granted asylum
WASHINGTON (AP) — Guan Heng, a Chinese national who exposed human rights abuses in his homeland, has been released from federal detention more than five months after being swept up in the Trump administration’s mass immigration enforcement operation.
Guan was released and reunited with his mother on Tuesday, nearly a week after being granted asylum by an immigration judge who determined that he faced a well-founded fear of persecution if sent back to China.
“I’m in a great mood,” Guan, 38, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I didn’t feel the excitement yesterday. I felt I was still in prison, but today many friends have come to see me.”
Guan, who is staying temporarily in Binghamton, New York, said he has not yet had time to think about what he will do in the longer term.
Hs mother, Luo Yun, who traveled to the U.S. from her home in Taiwan to support her son, said she finally felt relieved.
“For five and half months I didn’t sleep one good sleep, but today I feel assured,” Luo said.
It was a rare successful outcome for an asylum seeker since President Donald Trump returned to office. At one point in detention, Guan was faced with deportation to Uganda, but the Department of Homeland Security dropped the plan in December after his plight raised public concerns and attracted attention on Capitol Hill. DHS, which has 30 days to appeal the immigration judge’s Jan. 28 ruling, did not immediately respond to a request to confirm if it has decided not to appeal.
Rep. Ro Khanna, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said Guan should not have had to spend months in detention for the right outcome to be reached.
“His release is a reminder that the rule of law and our moral duty to protect those who expose human rights abuses go hand in hand,” Khanna said, vowing to press for transparency in similar cases.
Guan in 2020 secretly filmed detention facilities in Xinjiang, adding to a body of evidence of what activists say are widespread rights abuses in the Chinese region, where as many as 1 million members of ethnic minorities, especially the Uyghurs, have been locked up.
The Chinese government has denied allegations of rights abuses in Xinjiang, saying it runs vocational training programs to help local residents learn employable skills while rooting out radical thoughts. Beijing has silenced dissenting views on its practices in Xinjiang through a range of coercive means.
The State Department, while declining to comment on Guan’s case because of confidentiality rules, said it condemns the Chinese ruling party’s “genocide, religious persecution, and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and others in Xinjiang.”
During his asylum hearing last week, Guan said he didn’t set out to document the detention facilities Xinjiang so he could claim asylum in the United States. He said he sympathized with the persecuted Uyghurs and wanted to bear witness to their plight.
Guan knew he had to leave China if he wanted to publish the footage. He went first to Hong Kong and from there to Ecuador, where Chinese tourists could travel without a visa, and then to the Bahamas. He released most of his video footage on YouTube shortly before arriving in Florida by boat in October 2021.
Guan told the immigration judge he didn’t know whether he would survive the boat trip and wanted to make sure the footage would be seen.
Louisiana
New Orleans police say recruit detained by ICE had been verified
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The New Orleans Police Department is denying wrongdoing after one of its recruits was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which accused the city of violating federal immigration laws.
Federal agents last month arrested New Orleans police recruit Larry Temah, a 46-year-old Cameroonian national who had received a final order of removal signed by an immigration judge in December, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Temah remains in custody and awaits deportation.
Temah was in the department’s police academy when he was detained and was several months away from graduation. He had entered the U.S. in 2015 on a valid visitor visa and received conditional residency in 2016 after marrying a U.S. citizen. In 2022, his application for permanent residency was “denied due to fraud,” according to DHS.
“Criminal illegal aliens have no place in our communities — especially on our police forces,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin stated Tuesday.
But New Orleans Police Department spokesperson Reese Harper said Tuesday that DHS had made “misleading” statements about Temah’s case. The department had confirmed Temah’s employment eligibility through a DHS verification system and was never notified that ICE was seeking to detain Temah until the day of his arrest, he said.
“New Orleans is not a sanctuary city,” Harper said. “Any claim that NOPD knowingly violated the law is false.”
Harper stated that the NOPD had not given Temah a gun because he was still in the process of completing the police academy.
The clash between the city and federal authorities arises in the aftermath of Operation Catahoula Crunch, a sweeping immigration crackdown centered around New Orleans that launched in December. The operation appears to be on pause after federal agents were redirected to Minneapolis in early January.
President Donald Trump’s administration has repeatedly accused New Orleans of undermining federal immigration enforcement, and Louisiana passed legislation seeking to force the city to collaborate with ICE. The New Orleans Police Department has said immigration enforcement is a civil matter outside its jurisdiction.
Chief Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters last week that no issues with Temah’s legal status had emerged during the hiring process. Temah had lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years and had a valid driver’s license, Social Security card, and no criminal history, she added.
“We did the due diligence,” Kirkpatrick said during a Jan. 28 press conference.
DHS directed The Associated Press to its press release. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why Temah had been eligible for employment on ICE’s verification system or how he had engaged in fraud.
Temah could not be reached for comment. The New Orleans Police Department did not share information about Temah’s legal representation when asked and the Fraternal Order of Police in New Orleans did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
