Most Republican lawmakers see the Chinese Communist Party as oppressive — a government that has massacred activists and imprisoned religious and political dissidents. They’ve embraced pro-democracy Hong Kongers in recent years and worked with Democrats to help victims of genocide in China.
But members of those groups who are living in the United States — and are in the process of seeking asylum — are now at heightened risk of being sent back to danger by their own GOP allies, as incoming President Donald Trump prepares to quickly implement a sweeping mass deportation program.
“I’ve read Project 2025. I understand that when it is suggested that immigrants should be deported and the asylum system dismantled, it also includes these brave human rights defenders,” pro-democracy activist Joey Siu wrote on X after Trump won the election. “They are on the verge of being sent back to authoritarian countries that eagerly await their return and imprisonment.”
Trump has pledged to deport groups who already have protected status, such as people from Haiti. And he has suggested in the past that Chinese nationals who are seeking asylum are building an “army” in the U.S.
Trump also hasn’t demonstrated much personal concern for these groups, either; he viewed pro-democracy Hong Kong protests in 2019 as “riots” for the Chinese government to resolve, and Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, alleged that Trump told China’s leader, Xi Jinping, that imprisoning people in Xinjiang en masse was “exactly the right thing” to do.
Trump’s team isn’t offering clarity. When asked if people from Xinjiang or Hong Kong would be targeted for removal under the mass deportation plan, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung did not respond.
Some Republican lawmakers told NOTUS they want to see Hong Kongers, Uyghurs and other people from Xinjiang protected.
“These folks should be able to request asylum legitimately,” Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said.
And New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, who has advocated for human rights in China for decades, said he would work to protect them from deportation if needed. He has experience doing just that: During the Clinton administration, he recalled, he hosted hearings in a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee about Chinese asylum seekers at risk of deportation from the United States, who underwent forced abortions by the Chinese government.
Smith and a colleague offered an amendment to an immigration bill at the time to make sure victims of forced abortions met the “well-founded fear” of persecution standard that asylum judges consider.
The Biden administration moved to protect Hong Kongers from deportation this week, a decision Siu praised and attributed to advocacy by human rights groups.
Still, the order leaves a lot of wiggle room for Trump’s team: Hong Kongers can be removed if the secretary of homeland security determines their presence in America “is not in the interest of the United States or presents a danger to public safety,” or if the secretary of state “has reasonable grounds to believe” their presence “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”
People from Xinjiang don’t have a similar protected status, often waiting nearly a decade for their claims to be adjudicated.
Other Republicans on Capitol Hill don’t seem to have thought much about it.
In interviews with NOTUS, several GOP lawmakers said they hadn’t considered the matter, or that they didn’t expect Hong Kongers or people from Xinjiang to be targeted first. They said they believe the Trump administration will prioritize removing criminals and people suspected of having ties to terrorism.
But some also acknowledged it’s possible these groups could be caught up in a mass deportation — and that Congress may not have much power to protect them.
“Those folks are no more or no less likely to,” Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, said of the potential for deportation.
Tillis went on to tell NOTUS that he wasn’t sympathetic to people from Xinjiang, where the U.S. government has said genocide is happening, if they crossed into America from Mexico.
“If they came from China, think about how many asylum jurisdictions they passed through before they decided to pay a cartel to come across that border,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who cross the border when they pass through other jurisdictions where they could have been granted asylum.”
And Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, responded to a question about whether these groups should be protected from deportation by telling NOTUS that “no one should come here illegally.”
People from Xinjiang are making that trek, hoping to claim asylum here, where they believe they will be safe from Chinese influence. Other countries, such as Thailand, have caved to pressure from China to send refugees back to Xinjiang in the past. Thailand is currently considering deporting another group of Uyghur men back to China.
It’s not clear how many Chinese asylum seekers in the U.S. are from Xinjiang or have directly faced persecution by the Chinese government. Refugees who escaped China’s “reeducation camps” in Xinjiang recently told The New York Times they worry their newfound safety could be ripped away in the mass deportation.
And the Niskanen Center found that hundreds of people from cities in Xinjiang landed in Ecuador in 2023, a common starting point before migrants head north to the United States. Asylum judges approve claims from Chinese nationals at rates much higher than immigrants from other countries.
But there are already signs that these refugees don’t have enough protection. The Biden administration’s recent deportation flights to China may have included at-risk asylum seekers, because they were removed under an expedited process. Trump’s team plans to use that same process to remove migrants on the southern border.
The Washington Post reported this week that a number of different groups are likely to be deported first, including people convicted of crimes. But it also noted that those who are waiting for their claims to be heard in the asylum system — the system adjudicating claims from people who fled Xinjiang and Hong Kong — are particularly easy to find, having given their names and contact information to the U.S. government.
Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern, who has often worked with Smith on the congressional panel tasked with monitoring human rights in China, expressed hope that Republicans within the Trump administration stand up for these groups.
“I worked with Marco Rubio on the China commission, and we found a lot of common ground on standing up to China on the Uyghur issue and also pushing back on China’s horrific behavior in Hong Kong,” he said. “So I’m hoping that maybe there’s an ally with him.”
But, he said, “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“All we know is that the demagogues make no distinction between people seeking asylum and people illegally crossing the border,” he said.
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Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS.