After China launched its authoritarian crackdown on Hong Kong in 2020 — arresting activists and shuttering media outlets — a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers, including Marco Rubio, called for providing a haven for people fleeing repression. President Joe Biden responded in 2021 with a directive allowing thousands of Hong Kong citizens to remain legally in the United States and extended the protections twice.
The Trump administration appears poised to allow those protections to expire in February. That could result in some good people being sent to cruel and unjust fates. Many of them have been involved in advocating for the restoration of political freedoms in their home city.
Even low-profile activism in Hong Kong can result in a prison sentence. Under sweeping rules, a Facebook post critical of the government, a meme or even liking a protest song could be grounds for a sedition charge. Comments made outside the island can also be prosecuted as a crime in Hong Kong.
Yet in recent months, at least a dozen Hong Kong citizens who are in the U.S. with the protected status have been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Several were arrested at airports while trying to board domestic flights. Other Hong Kong citizens with different statuses have also been detained. Some say they were coerced into signing statements promising to voluntarily leave the country. Most, if not all, have been released by immigration judges but have been forced to wear ankle monitoring bracelets and restricted from traveling.
The State Department has said about 3,800 Hong Kong citizens were in the U.S. as of 2021 and therefore eligible for Deferred Enforced Departure status, although some advocacy groups believe the number was as high as 7,000. Many were already in the U.S. on student or work visas when China imposed its draconian national security law in 2020 following months of anti-government protests. Some people might have applied to stay in the U.S. under different programs, including traditional asylum claims.
At the time of China’s crackdown, one of the leading voices advocating for protecting Hong Kong’s expats was Rubio, now the secretary of state. “The U.S. must do all it can to assist those Hong Kongers who have courageously stood up to defend the city they love from the CCP’s persecution and open our doors to them,” the senator said in 2021, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. Rubio sponsored a bill that would have made it easier for Hong Kongers to obtain refugee status. Unfortunately, it did not pass.
Hong Kong is still in the grip of a repressive government. The newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai, 78, remains behind bars after being convicted at an unfair trial and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The young student activist Joshua Wong, who as a teenager became the face of an earlier 2014 protest movement, recently turned 30 in prison with no prospect for release. Hong Kong has jailed hundreds of political prisoners, according to human rights advocacy groups.
Thus, those lucky enough to be in the U.S. still need a haven. President Donald Trump has said that freeing Lai is a priority in his dealings with Chinese President Xi Jinping. That was welcome news. Wong and others unjustly imprisoned in Hong Kong merit similar efforts. The least the Trump administration can do is stop the harassment of exiled Hong Kongers who might have to join China’s political prisoners if denied the right to stay in America.
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