A human rights lawyer who fled China looking for asylum in the United States is back home with family after spending 10 days in an ICE processing center.
“I lost freedom,” Shaoping Wu said while sitting in his Mountville home, speaking through a translator Wednesday about his time in ICE custody. The whole ordeal gave him trauma, he said.
Wu left China in 2019 after watching the government retaliate against his peers for promoting democracy and personal freedoms, his attorney John Visher said.
He entered the United States in December of 2019 on a tourist visa, which lasted six months. Before those six months were over, Visher said, he applied for asylum out of fear he would be persecuted if he returned to China.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that it received Wu’s I-589 Application for Asylum and Withholding of Removal on June 3, 2020.
CBS 21 viewed a document from the Department of Homeland Security with Wu’s name on it that reads, “You may remain in the U.S. until your asylum application is decided.”
In the meantime, Wu also received authorization to work in the United States through 2030.
Now, Visher said, Wu has been waiting six years for the next part of the process, an asylum interview.
However, on July 15, 2026, Wu was working as an Amazon driver when he was pulled over by local police officers in Mount Holly Springs for allegedly failing to stop at a stop sign.
Shortly after, his lawyer said, Wu was detained by ICE agents.
USA/China: Rights lawyer detained by ICE now home with ankle monitor: ‘psychological trauma’
