cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/47623628

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.

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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.

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Guan was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in August for illegally entering the country, part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. He remains in a New York state detention center.

His detention and threatened deportation to Uganda has stirred controversy, not least because he helped document abuses in China that the U.S. government during Trump’s first term deemed “genocide.”

His supporters and lawyer say Guan faced almost certain persecution if deported to Uganda. The East African country, where Beijing has considerable political and economic clout, this year entered into an agreement with the U.S. to take in nationals from third countries. “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 [said].

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