Chinese community advocates say US immigration officials have detained dozens of people who were convicted of felonies decades ago

Immigration officials in California are stepping up efforts to detain and deport Chinese nationals who have been convicted of felonies in the US but who China couldn’t take back until now, rights groups and Chinese community advocates say.

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The groups report that since early June, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have raided the homes of Chinese immigrants and detained dozens of people who were convicted of felonies decades ago.



“The people I spoke to who were recently detained by ICE had already served their time in prison for their offenses and most had been living as law-abiding citizens for more than 10 or 20 years,” said Anoop Prasad, immigration attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, a San Francisco-based legal aid and civil rights advocacy serving low-income Asian Pacific American communities.

Prasad connects the apparent crackdown by ICE in California to talks in April between the Chinese minister of public security, Guo Shengkun, and the US secretary of homeland security, Jeh Johnson, which resulted in a cooperation agreement “to improve information sharing on repatriation and fugitive cases and provide regular status updates on cases of interest for which sufficient evidence is provided”, according to US Department of Homeland Security documents.

The US has no extradition treaty with China. However, suspected criminals can be expelled for immigration violations.

The cooperation is a result of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s extensive crackdown on government corruption and officials who fled overseas. In 2014, China’s global operation to hunt down “economic fugitives” was codenamed Operation Fox Hunt, and Operation Skynet was started in April.

“In response to this cooperation, it looks like US officials asked China to provide travel documents for thousands of Chinese immigrants that the US wants to deport,” said Prasad.

Virginia Kice, ICE’s western regional spokeswoman, said in an email statement that a 27 March 2015 memorandum of understanding (MOU) between ICE director Sarah Saldana and director general for China’s ministry of public security’s Bureau of Exit and Entry Administration Zheng Baigang improved the US’s process to establish the identity of Chinese nationals in detention, which is a necessary step for them to be deported.

Kice said the process requires Chinese experts to travel to the US and interview Chinese nationals who are to be deported, and verify their identity and citizenship. She said that the first team of experts traveled from Beijing to the US in late June and is currently interviewing Chinese nationals who ICE has designated as priorities for deportation.

“Prior to their return to China, the experts will provide ICE with a report outlining the results of their interviews,” said Kice.

According to ICE’s current immigration enforcement policies, immigrants convicted of a felony are most at-risk for deportation. In 2014 ICE deported almost 87,000 people who were living inside the US and were previously convicted of a crime.

However, Annette Wong, immigrant rights program manager for the San Francisco-based group Chinese for Affirmative Action, says detaining and deporting people who have already served their time in the US is like “double jeopardy”.

Wong gives the example of Daniel Maher, a 41-year old Chinese immigrant who was born in Macau and legally came to the US in 1977 with his family. Maher has been a program director at the Berkeley Ecology Center, a recycling centre in northern California, for 10 years.

Prasad, who is Maher’s immigration attorney, said when Maher was 20 he robbed a store with a group of other young men. He pleaded to three felony accounts and served five years in state prison. After serving his sentence Maher was detained by immigration authorities and in February 2000 was ordered to be deported. His green card was taken from him however according to ICE officials, Chinese authorities declined to provide the necessary documentation and a federal judge ordered immigration services to release him.

Maher was freed in August 2001 and said in a statement that he has checked in with immigration authorities regularly since then.

In June, 14 years after being released, Maher was detained again and is now in the Mesa Verde immigration detention facility in Bakersfield, waiting to be deported.

“On June 2, 2015, I was taken by ICE agents without any warning in a targeted sweep of Chinese nationals in the United States who have at some point in their lives been convicted of crimes as far back as two decades ago. Many of these individuals have already turned their lives around and have even started families,” Maher said in his statement.

Almost all of Maher’s family is in the US and Prasad said he doesn’t speak Chinese.

Daniel Maher. Almost all of Maher’s family is in the US. Photograph: Berkeley Ecology Center

The Chinese embassy in Washington and the Chinese consulate in San Francisco did not respond to requests to be interviewed or provide information on Maher’s case.

Since being detained, Maher’s family, friends, coworkers and immigrant rights groups have been pushing for ICE officials to use their prosecutorial discretion and release Maher. Wong started on online petition which has almost 2,800 signatures.

“What he did at 20 has no bearing on the work he did at the ecology center and on the man we know and value,” said Amy Kiser, a director at the center, the recycling plant that Maher worked at. Kiser worked with Maher since 2005 and says the center is keeping his job for him.

She said she now sees how flawed the US immigration process is and that authorities need to look beyond a person’s rap sheet before deciding to deport them. “Daniel is not a threat to public safety. He is a big asset to our office and to his community,” said Kiser.

“For the last 10 years, I have strived to build on what I’ve learned and I have dedicated my life to educating others on the environmental impacts of plastic pollution on our precious, natural resources,” Maher said in his statement.

But Kice says that “As a convicted aggravated felon, Mr Maher remains an enforcement priority based on his criminal history.”