Lawyer for Guan Heng, whose exposed evidence of persecution of Uyghurs, says he is ‘textbook example of why asylum should exist’
A US immigration judge has granted asylum to a Chinese national who he said had a “well founded fear” of persecution if sent back to China after exposing alleged human rights abuses against Uyghurs there.
Guan Heng 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 last year as part of a mass deportation campaign by the Trump administration.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 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 ruling is an increasingly rare successful outcome for an asylum seeker since Donald Trump returned to office. The asylum approval rate dropped to 10% in 2025, down from 28% between 2010 and 2024, according to federal data compiled by US non-profit Mobile Pathways.
