Trump Administration Drops Effort to Deport Chinese Dissident Guan Heng to Uganda

I recently wrote about the Trump Administration’s reprehensible effort to deport courageous Chinese dissident Guan Heng to Uganda, which country would likely transfer him back to China, where he would face imprisonment or death. So I am happy to be able to say that the administration has now apparently dropped this plan:

The U.S. on Friday dropped its effort to deport a Chinese national who helped document Beijing’s alleged abuses against Uyghur Muslims to Uganda, the man’s lawyer told Reuters.

Guan Heng, a Chinese citizen-journalist, fled the U.S. in 2021 after taking video of alleged concentration camps in China’s western Xinjiang region. He released the video after arriving in the U.S., where he applied for asylum….

“We just got a letter informing that DHS (Department of Homeland Security) will not seek to remove Mr. Guan to Uganda,” his lawyer Allen Chen told Reuters.

Chen said it was not clear if Washington would continue to pursue Guan’s removal, either to China or another country, but said sending such a “high-profile dissident” back to China would be unlikely.

Under Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policies, migrants may be deported to third countries if immigration authorities either have “credible” diplomatic assurances they will not be persecuted or tortured if sent there or have given the migrants as little as six hours of notice ahead of time that they are being sent to such a place.

Nonetheless, Chen said the withdrawal of the Uganda removal order was a positive development, adding that he expected Guan would have a bond hearing in coming weeks, though his asylum case could take several years.

As Guan’s lawyer notes, the administration could still potentially try to deport him directly to China. But they are unlikely to do after having dropped the attempt at a “third country” deportation, which probably had a better chance of success.

This reversal is likely the result of the widespread outcry against the attempt to deport Guan. It’s not likely that the administration suddenly had an epiphany about the legal issues involved (it was always obvious that Guan has a very strong case for asylum). Thus, this is a sign the administration is not immune to public resistance to its cruel and unjust deportation policies. Opponents should learn from this experience and keep up the pressure, and – where possible – increase it.

As noted in my previous post about Guan, the attempt to deport him is just part of a much broader policy of deporting dissidents and victims of persecution back to their oppressors:

Sadly, the effort to deport Guan is part of a broader pattern of Trump administration efforts to deport dissidents and victims of persecution back to the regimes that oppress them. These policies now include deporting Russian dissidents back to Vladimir Putin’s brutal dictatorship, refugees who fled oppression in Cuba and Venezuela, Iranian Christians who fled persecution by that country’s radical Islamist regime, and Afghans who fled the Taliban (including many who aided the US during the war). Such policies are obviously cruel and unjust. They are also strategically counterproductive.

A policy that essentially aids anti-American regimes in their persecution of dissidents undermines our position in the international war of ideas between these governments’ ideologies and ours, and deters future would-be dissidents and allies from working against those governments or aiding us. This isn’t making America Great Again. It’s making us simultaneously evil and stupid.

Ideally, these other cruel deportation policies should be met with the same widespread condemnation as that which resulted in the administration’s reversal on Guan Heng.

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