Chinese Whistleblower Scores a Rare Win in Asylum Case

An immigration judge on Wednesday granted asylum to a Chinese national who he said had a "well founded fear" of persecution if sent back to China after exposing human rights abuses there. Guan Heng, 38, applied for asylum after arriving in the US illegally in 2021. He has been in custody since being swept up in an immigration enforcement operation in August as part of a mass deportation campaign by the Trump administration. The Department of Homeland Security initially sought to deport Guan to Uganda, but dropped the plan in December after his plight raised public concerns and attracted attention on Capitol Hill, the AP reports.

• In 2020, Guan 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.
• During Wednesday's hearing in Napanoch, New York, Guan was asked if his intention in filming the detention facilities and then releasing the video a few days before arriving in the US was to give him grounds to apply for asylum. He said that was not his goal. "I sympathized with the Uyghurs who were persecuted," Guan told the court through a translator.
• Guan knew he had to leave China if he wanted to publish the footage, he told the AP. 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 footage on YouTube before taking a boat to Florida in October 2021. Guan told the judge he didn't know whether he would survive the boat trip and wanted to make sure the footage would be seen.

• Guan's lawyer, Chen Chuangchuang, said in his closing statement that the case is a "textbook example of why asylum should exist" and that the US has both a "moral and legal responsibility" to grant Guan asylum.
• Judge Charles Ouslander told Guan the court found him to be a credible witness and that he had established his legal eligibility for asylum. He said Guan was right to fear retaliation if sent back, noting that the Chinese government had questioned his family and inquired about Guan's whereabouts and past activities.
• It was an increasingly rare successful outcome for an asylum seeker since President Trump returned to office. The asylum approval rate dropped to 10% in 2025, down from 28% between 2010 and 2024, according to federal data.
• Guan was not immediately released because a Homeland Security lawyer said the department reserves the right to appeal. It has 30 days to do so, but Ouslander urged DHS to make its decision soon, noting that Guan has already been detained for five months.