Chinese man who secretly filmed detention camps in China faces deportation from U.S.

A Chinese man who filmed alleged detention camps in China faces possible deportation to Uganda under the Trump administration.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

A Chinese man who secretly filmed detention camps in western China, where the Chinese government held at least hundreds of thousands of Uyghur people and other Muslim minorities, he now faces deportation from the United States. He had applied for asylum in the U.S., but the Trump administration is now arguing he should be sent to Uganda. NPR's Emily Feng reports.

EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Guan Heng, now 38 years old, became intrigued by Western media reports in 2020 about detention camps in Xinjiang. That's the western region where China began detaining ethnic Uyghurs and where the U.S. has sanctioned officials and companies connected to this campaign.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GUAN HENG: (Speaking Mandarin).

FENG: So as Guan explains in this online video, he went to Xinjiang himself. He filmed dozens of hours of footage of alleged detention camps. Beijing calls them reeducation facilities. And Guan knew he could not publish this film while still in China. So he fled, first to Ecuador, which at the time did not require a visa for Chinese citizens, and then to the Bahamas, where he bought an inflatable boat. And despite having no sailing experience, he sailed it to Florida in October 2021. He then applied for asylum once in the U.S., and his lawyer says he also got a work permit.

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GUAN: (Speaking Mandarin).

FENG: Before he set sail for the U.S., Guan published a YouTube video with his Xinjiang footage, saying at the end, if you don't want to be enslaved, then you should hope the Chinese Communist Party steps down.

LUO YUN: (Speaking Mandarin).

FENG: Guan's mother, Luo Yun, spoke to NPR by phone. She's lived in Taiwan for years, but back in China, she says every single relative of theirs has suffered state intimidation because of her son's video. In the U.S., Guan kept a low profile, waiting for nearly four years for his asylum case to be heard. But this past August, his lawyer says Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, raided his apartment in order to arrest his roommate.

CHEN CHUANGCHUANG: (Speaking Mandarin).

FENG: Chen Chuangchuang, Guan's lawyer, says Guan just had bad luck - in the wrong place at the wrong time. And Guan admitted when asked that he'd entered the U.S. without a visa.

CHEN: (Speaking Mandarin).

FENG: Chen says ICE detained Guan right then and there, and Guan has remained in detention in upstate New York. This past Monday, during a hearing on his asylum case, a Trump administration lawyer argued in favor of third-country deportation, sending Guan to Uganda, an African country he has no connection to and has never been to. His mother, Luo Yun, is distraught at this idea.

LUO: (Speaking Mandarin).

FENG: She fears he cannot guarantee his safety in Uganda. It has close political ties with - and expanding economic partnerships with - China. Emily Feng, NPR News.

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