Since January, WSKG's Celia Clarke has been following the detention and asylum case of a 38 year old Chinese man who filmed Uyghur detention centers in a far western region of the country.
Uyghurs are a Muslim minority who've been persecuted by the Chinese government. The man was held in the Broome County Jail for about five months. Then on Jan. 30, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took him to a federal immigration detention center in Batavia, near Buffalo.
WSKG's Celia Clarke covered the story and spoke with WSKG News Director Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo about the case.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
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Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo: So to start, Celia, who is this man, and what's the latest [with his story?]
Celia Clarke: His name—I'm going to apologize off the bat to all our listeners who speak Mandarin Chinese—but his name is Guan Heng, and as I reported recently, he was released from ICE detention.
First of all, I want to make it clear, it's very hard to get asylum in the United States, and it's always been that way. So, Mr. Guan finally had his asylum request granted in late January, but it wasn't until six days after that that he was let out, and I say “finally”, because he was waiting for four years before he was taken into ICE custody last August.
So the fact that he got asylum is noteworthy, and the fact that he got it in the current immigration enforcement environment is especially worth attention.
PTV: And you were allowed to watch his asylum hearing remotely. What stood out to you from that hearing?
CC: So one of the things was just what he did – filming of Uyghur detention centers is very special and it's never really successfully been done before. There have been people who've done photographs or other documentation, but they ended up in jail. In fact, the one that he cited in his asylum case was someone that ended up with a 19 year jail sentence.
Also what he said about how he planned for his video to upload while he was in a little inflatable boat trying to get to the US from the Bahamas, I just found that like kind of a breathtaking moment for me, that he had the frame of mind to plan that, in case he drowned and died and never made it here, his film would still be seen, like the evidence of these camps, these detention prisons, would still be seen.
And then, also, another thing is that the State Department weighed in on this case by sending a letter to the judge saying that he should get asylum. And I know that because that was something that the judge himself mentioned during one of his earlier hearings. And also I didn't realize how much international attention his case was getting and it got a lot.
PTV: So he did get granted asylum, but the judge didn't actually order him freed after approving his asylum. Can you explain that?
CC: Yeah, that puzzled all of us right, right in the moment. And I'm beginning to think that that sort of thing only happens in movies or tv, partly because when I interviewed his attorney the next day after the asylum case, I mean, after the asylum hearing, he wasn't that concerned about that.
So, that was the day right after the hearing, then the next day after that ICE took him out of the Broome County Jail, and that really surprised me, so I actually contacted someone at the jail to ask about what happened.
Even though he was in the Broome County Jail, he was still in ICE custody, not the sheriff's office custody.
So I so basically the person at this jail, [them] gave me a statement and explained that Sheriff Akshar notified ICE that the jail wouldn't keep holding him since he'd been granted asylum.
So ICE came and picked him up and they took him to Batavia, the federal immigration detention center. So I was sort of scrambling around on that day to confirm where he was, and partly for a selfish reason, which was I had started arranging an interview with him in the Broome County jail, and then he suddenly got taken out of that and I didn't know where he was or how I would contact him.
PTV: So does this mean that he's done with his immigration legal process?
CC: Nope, not yet. DHS has until February 27 that's 30 days after his asylum was granted, to appeal it, but at least for now, he doesn't have to wait that out in jail. Interestingly, his attorney doesn't know why DHS released him. He just knows he's out.
PTV: So how did he end up in the Broome County jail? Was it because of their 287(g) agreement with ICE that I know you've reported on before, and there has been some pushback in the community. Are these things related at all?
CC: Nope, again. The sheriff's offICE told me that it was not because of the 280 7g and that's because the 287(g) only allows staff in the jail to issue immigration warrants to people who are already incarcerated.
Basically, and this shouldn't have been a surprise to me, federal law enforcement agencies know what the capacity of local jails are, and when they need to transfer someone, they contact one. And this isn't just ICE, I want to be clear, it's federal law enforcement agencies, so the Marshals Service, the FBI, all of them do this kind of thing. So that's how he ended up in Broome County jail.
PTV: What are your big takeaways from all of this?
CC: There's actually just one, and stick with me on following this bit.
So when Guan Heng was arrested by ICE, they only asked him one question. First, first of all, sorry, maybe I should throw this in. First of all, they weren't even looking for him. They came to the house where he had - the house he was renting with other people. They were looking for those other people, but he was there, and so they started asking him questions. They really only asked him one question, how he'd come into the country and where, meaning, did he have a visa? Did he come into an airport or whatever?
And he answered them truthfully - that he didn't have a visa when he came into the country, he had a work permit and he had an asylum application pending. So that, and a class action suit that I had to learn about doing this reporting, were my light bulb moments. Basically that ICE doesn't care and the Administration doesn't care that much about if people have been, “doing things the right way”.
Their main concern is how someone came into the country. And how someone how someone arrives in the country, doesn't automatically mean that they are not allowed to be here, because there's a whole system for asylum, for example, that allows people to be in the country, which is why Mr. Guan had a work permit. You're allowed to be in the country. You're allowed to work legally, for example, while you're awaiting asylum or while your green card is in process, that kind of thing.
PTV: Are there any other local immigration cases that you're following in our area?
CC: Yes, there are two. One is a Roger Huang, who is a Chinese man who lived in a Owego for over 30 years. He was arrested back in June, and the last I was able to find out about him, it was that he was in the Batavia detention center. I don't know if he's still there, still trying to track down someone who can tell me about his status.
And the other is the case of a van full of men, 10 or 12 men, who were stopped and taken into custody by ICE in Spencer, which is, it's a small village in Tioga County. And I've been asking ICE about them since July, and not gotten any information yet, and because I haven't been able to get anything from ICE about the men in the van, I'm going to keep working on that, too.
PTV: Well thank you so much for talking to me about all of this Celia, looking forward to following your coverage.
CC: Thanks, Phoebe.
