Chinese asylum seeker who exposed rights abuses fights to stay in the US

WASHINGTON (AP) — Guan Heng, who exposed human rights abuses in his native China, has been in U.S. custody since being swept up in an immigration enforcement operation in August. He says he dares not even think about what would happen to him if he were sent back.

“I would be prosecuted, I would be jailed, I would be tortured. All of that could happen,” Guan, 38, told The Associated Press in a recent call from the Broome County Correctional Facility in New York.

A judge on Monday is to consider his appeal to remain in the United States, where he sought asylum after fleeing his homeland more than four years ago to publish video footage of detention facilities in China’s Xinjiang region.

The Department of Homeland Security initially sought to deport him to Uganda, but dropped the plan in December after his plight raised public concerns and attracted attention on Capitol Hill. But his future remains unclear.

Guan said the public attention has given him hope. During his first months in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, he said “there was no help from the outside world” and stories from fellow detainees and reports of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration campaign left him ext...