Since early 2021, the U.S. government has said China is committing genocide. But that designation may not be making a difference on America’s southern border, where U.S. officials are deporting Chinese nationals potentially back to danger.
Many immigrants seeking asylum from around the world are in dire circumstances, but for the primarily Muslim ethnic groups seeking refuge from China — like Uyghurs and Kazakhs, whom Democrats and Republicans have both said need to be protected from genocide — new border policies from the Biden administration, paired with a recent agreement on direct deportations to China, raise urgent questions.
In the northwest region of Xinjiang, these ethnic groups have been thrown into “reeducation” camps, where prisoners contend with horrific conditions. They’ve been subjected to forced labor. And the ones who aren’t imprisoned are still under constant scrutiny, as Chinese police track their every move — what kind of groceries they buy, if they grow beards, if they own books that might be a little too religious and if they visit foreign websites or text with friends who live in other countries.
All the while, the Chinese government has razed historic cultural sites, converted mosques into secular buildings, sterilized women against their will and forced many to abort pregnancies.
America has slapped sanctions on Chinese authorities for those atrocities. And Congress passed a sweeping trade ban on products from the area, blocking thousands of shipments from entering U.S. markets over the past two years.
But the Biden administration’s recent move to quickly deport more migrants as Election Day approaches doesn’t seem to take the genocide into account. Chinese nationals — some of them likely from Xinjiang, according to data from countries migrants travel through on their trek to the United States — are arriving in increasing numbers, and it’s unclear if there are enough safeguards to prevent people who are facing genocide from being deported back to the country perpetrating it.
At least, it’s proving nearly impossible to get an answer from the Biden administration.
When congressional staff asked the administration who was on a recent deportation flight to China, officials weren’t able to assure them none of the passengers were members of ethnic groups facing genocide in Xinjiang, according to staff familiar with the conversations.
Even if all of the passengers on that particular flight were not at risk of persecution — the Department of Homeland Security isn’t providing details — human rights activists want to make sure the Biden administration is at least checking first.
But in conversations, it hasn’t been clear to Hill staff that immigration enforcement officials are checking — or even have the authority to check. New expedited processing rules are deporting migrants so quickly that little is known about them.
Congressional staff also have almost no insight into the contours of a recent DHS agreement to resume direct deportation flights to China. According to a person familiar with the discussions, administration officials have admitted they have no way of knowing what happens to deportees after they arrive back in China.
In June, the White House moved to limit the number of migrants released into the U.S. The new order declared that migrants who enter between legal ports of entry are immediately removable to their home countries.
With those new rules in place, officers are not asking if migrants are fleeing persecution. Instead, they only consider claims if migrants raise fears of persecution in their home countries unsolicited — and they apply higher standards of proof to those claims than before. Even when asylum-seekers have known to bring it up to pass this “shout test,” some say U.S. officials have ignored them.
Immigration agents are, of course, applying these same stringent asylum standards to migrants from around the globe. Numerous countries — Syria, Haiti and Venezuela, for example — are facing humanitarian crises, and the new deportation rules risk sending all kinds of people back to danger.
The same month that the Biden administration changed the rules, the U.S. returned 116 Chinese nationals to China, the largest such deportation flight in five years. It’s uncertain who was on that flight — whether some of them had been through the yearslong asylum process and had been denied or if the administration prioritized removing new arrivals who hadn’t yet claimed asylum. The Department of Homeland Security’s statement about the flight said it was “a result” of Biden’s June proclamation, though, indicating the latter scenario is more likely.
When NOTUS asked in mid-July if any of the passengers were members of ethnic groups the American government has said are facing genocide, all that a DHS spokesperson would say was that “each individual repatriated was issued a final order of removal in accordance with our laws and policies, and did not have legal basis to remain in the United States.”
Immigration advocates are alarmed by how opaque the administration is being about these deportations. And in their view, it’s entirely possible the U.S. government’s official genocide designation for Xinjiang isn’t playing much of a role on the ground, even in cases where it may be relevant.
“Without a thorough screening, with a very fast process, no access to U.S. legal counsel and very limited access to requesting asylum at ports of entry, it’s very difficult to be certain that our government is not deporting people to situations where they are likely to be persecuted or even killed,” said Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, a Christian nonprofit.
In recent years, some Xinjiang refugees have been able to obtain protection after first escaping to countries in Europe. But others seem to be trying — like many other immigrants from around the world — to make the perilous journey to the U.S. from South and Central American countries. In 2023, hundreds of people from cities in Xinjiang made it to Ecuador — a country many migrants land in before heading north, which tracks the cities within China these migrants are from.
People from Xinjiang don’t make up the majority of Chinese nationals coming to America. But plenty of asylum-seekers with valid claims about oppression in China are coming, too, many fleeing religious persecution. Others say they want better economic opportunities or are simply fed up with the Chinese government.
Because many of those migrants are young men, American politicians have accused at least some of them of being spies. In May, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump went further, suggesting China is building an “army” in the U.S. by sending Chinese men through the southern border.
A recent congressional hearing examined security risks too. It’s a long-running debate between China hawks and human rights activists: As China crushed freedom in Hong Kong in 2019 and 2020, some lawmakers tried to make it easier for Hong Kongers to obtain asylum. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas blocked one such bill, even after it passed the House without controversy, by claiming the Chinese government would use it to send in spies.
Still, as most American lawmakers acknowledge, people in China have faced intense religious and political persecution for decades. The Chinese nationals who make it through America’s yearslong asylum adjudication process often get to stay, with higher rates of approval than people from other countries. When it comes to Xinjiang, most policymakers would agree that if there’s anything that should protect a group from deportation, it’s an official genocide designation.
When NOTUS asked the DHS spokesperson what safeguards from deportation exist for those ethnic groups facing genocide in Xinjiang, the spokesperson didn’t respond.
When NOTUS called the National Security Council in search of an answer, a staffer there confirmed over the phone that the NSC would know and that it was the correct entity to ask, directing NOTUS to its press team’s email address. The NSC then didn’t respond to five emails from NOTUS asking for clarity.
When NOTUS tried the White House communications team, a spokesperson there didn’t answer questions and instead immediately redirected NOTUS back to the National Security Council.
When NOTUS pressed the NSC twice more for an answer, an NSC spokesperson simply referred NOTUS back to DHS.
When NOTUS replied that the DHS spokesperson had already failed to answer questions about the deportation flight, the NSC spokesperson said they would check with DHS.
Last week, when asked again, the NSC spokesperson emailed NOTUS: “I’m told DHS responded to you. I have nothing further to add.”
The DHS spokesperson did not respond to new requests for comment for this story.
The Chinese government, however, did respond to a request for comment. But embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu wouldn’t say whether any of the deportees were from Xinjiang, or what assurances China may have made to the U.S. government about protecting their human rights. He did suggest that some of the migrants sent back to China this year were “people involved in smuggling activities.”
“The National Immigration Administration will continue to carry out pragmatic law enforcement cooperation with relevant national authorities on the basis of equality and mutual respect, jointly maintain orderly flow of people between countries, and enhance international personnel exchanges,” he said.
For now, migrants, including any from Xinjiang, will continue to deal with the Biden administration policy, which “rolls back due process significantly,” according to Soerens.
“An ideal system would ensure that all individuals had access to due process — in a sufficiently timely process that it wouldn’t incentivize those who plainly do not qualify for asylum to make a dangerous journey, since they could be confident they’d be returned,” Soerens said.
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Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS.