ICE Raids California! Chinese Flee Home in Panic; Man Pays ¥350K to Reach US, Held a Year, Deported

Chinese residents in California have recently posted on social media that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is conducting widespread raids across the state. The arrest of undocumented immigrants have left many Chinese residents frightened. A video shows ICE agents chasing an undocumented immigrant trying to escape at a shopping plaza with a Chinese supermarket in Los Angeles. Several media outlets say ICE has secretly launched a major immigration enforcement campaign in California, a state known for its sanctuary policies called Operation Safe California. The operation is expected to last at least 45 days, possibly until mid-November. More than 250 federal officers are said to have been deployed to Southern California from offices across the country. ICE leadership has instructed agents to arrest undocumented immigrants encountered during operations, whether or not they have a criminal record. The arrest of a Chinese woman in Los Angeles has attracted considerable attention within Chinese communities abroad. On October 29th, reports spread through overseas Chinese communities that a woman known as Sister Xia, who had been linked to organizing Chinese supporters to welcome Xi Jinping, may have been detained by ICE. Her full name is Zheng Caixia. She lives in Los Angeles and has long been active in the local Chinese community, taking part in events organized by Chinese Chambers of Commerce and other groups. An online user-checking ICE detainee locator found a Chinese national named Caixia Zhang listed at the Midwest Regional Reception Center in Leavenworth, Kansas. Both the name and detention location closely match earlier disclosures circulating overseas. Other online disclosures suggest Sister Shah may have acted as a foreign government agent without notifying U.S. authorities. Conviction on the relevant federal charges could carry up to 10 years in prison. Previously circulated WeChat messages indicate Zhang Caixia recruited Chinese participants on behalf of a Los Angeles Chambers of Commerce to welcome Xi Jinping during a U.S. visit. She promised free round-trip flights, lodging and meals paid for by Chinese Communist Party diplomatic mission and the chamber. Participants were also offered more than $2,000 each. In a leaked phone recording, Zhang Caixia said she had already recruited more than 40 people. Places were filling quickly and other business associations were recruiting at the same time. People familiar with the arrangements said organizers also privately distributed substantial cash payments but avoided mentioning them in public groups because of legal concerns. Chairman of the China Democracy Party International Alliance, Jie Lijian, said paying Chinese participants to attend a political gathering with clear foreign government ties seriously violates the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act. Or FARA. Jie Lijian and several democracy activists abroad have submitted collected messages, transfer receipts and audio recordings to the FBI and immigration authorities. Zhang Caixia's detention has dealt a devastating blow to networks long tied to Chinese Communist Party diplomatic missions. Democracy activists abroad welcomed the development. One online commenter wrote, working for the Chinese Communist Party as a foreign agent can lead to prison and deportation. Another wrote, why keep working for the Chinese Communist Party after moving abroad? The way people understand the world shapes their future. Another commenter said, this was inevitable. More people will be arrested. Nobody will be spared. The United States is clearing out harmful actors and bigger operations are coming. Voice of Freedom in North America posted on X that people like Sister Shah have long led double lives in free societies. It accused them of enjoying Western freedoms, legal protections and benefits while settling their families and assets in capitalist countries they publicly criticize. It also accused them of using secret channels to gather intelligence, monitor other Chinese people, and serve authorities in China while publicly presenting themselves as devoted patriots in Chinese language online circles. But history can be unforgiving. When the tides turn, spies who profit from serving the system and betraying the values of freedom will eventually have to face the law. The article argued that the CCP officials directing such activities from behind the scenes would offer no help if ICE agents came to make arrests. It said those officials might quickly distance themselves, erase connections and deny the people involved had ever worked for them. The article warned people still living double lives as spies to think about the cold detention center where Sister Xia has been held, it's said they had little time left to change their ways. Another commenter urged Chinese Americans with relevant information to report suspicious activities, alleging that business associations, hometown groups, and student organizations can be used as cover for Chinese Communist Party intelligence operations. Meanwhile, on October 29th, a vlogger met a man from Fujian province in the arrivals hall at Shanghai Pudong International Airport. The man had just been deported from the United States under armed escort. He had some US cash but no yuan, had lost his Chinese identification documents and said he had gone a full day without eating. He could not even buy a bottled water. What were you doing over there? I was working at a restaurant in the United States. I got I got arrested and sent back. You're arrested and deported? How did you get there originally? I entered illegally. I went out in a friend's car one day, and the police caught me after I got out. So you lost a lot this time. Yeah. I've got nothing on me now except US dollars. It's so awkward coming back to China, my own country, and being stuck like this. Which way did you go? Through South America and Mexico, right? I've seen lots of news about people taking their route into the United States. A lot of people. More than 10 people who entered that way have been deported. I know 5 who were on my flight today. They're being very strict right now, right? Yes. Since Trump took office, once they lock you up, they won't let you out. They find a way to send you back. They keep you detained until you're scared. How much did you spend to get there? More than 300,000 yuan. I went early and it cost 350,000 yuan, about $52,000 during the pandemic. People could go for just 70,000 or 80,000 yuan. I was unlucky. Yeah, I see. I've just paid off my debts and started making a little money. I was only just beginning to earn. How many years were you there? More than six years in the United States, and I was detained for over a year. So going abroad isn't necessarily a good thing. But you can make money. China is good in a lot of ways. It's just harder to make money there. The two men went to a small airport supermarket. The person filming asked a clerk whether they could scan a mobile payment code to get cash, but the clerk said no. They eventually went to the airport currency exchange counter, hoping to find a Chinese traveler who could use an ID card to help the man from Fujian exchange some dollars for yuan. An ex-user sharing the video said Trump's aggressive deportation policies might seem distant to some people, but ICE agents could appear without warning and detain people until deportation. The commenter said moving to the United States to make money was far more difficult than it seemed and brought tremendous physical and emotional pressure. As federal enforcement tightens across the United States, underground businesses operating in Chinese communities are also facing increased scrutiny. On the morning of October 29th, police raided a house in San Gabriel, Southern California. Three Chinese women aged 20 to 30 were brought out for questioning. One broke down in tears. A person familiar with the property said it was owned by a landlord from mainland China and had been used for prostitution for one to two years, with women coming and going about every two weeks. Authorities have increasingly focused on legal operations moving into private homes. In May, police in nearby Monterey Park uncovered an underground prostitution network said to serve nearly 40 customers a day. In the San Fernando Valley, police identified at least 10 residential locations advertising through WeChat groups charging $140 for 20 minutes or $300 for an hour. At the same time, federal authorities in the Midwest have also targeted interstate human trafficking. A federal grand jury in North Dakota recently indicted 54-year-old Chinese woman Chiu Wan-Ting accused of obtaining immigration status through a sham marriage three years earlier, arranging illegal adult service involving young Chinese women, and laundering money through 24 bank accounts. She is being held without a scheduled release date. Beyond underground businesses, investigators have pursued national security cases. On October 30, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sentenced 40-year-old Lai Liren and 39-year-old Chen Yuante in a case involving conspiracy to act as agents of the Chinese government. Their sentences included 30 months in prison for Lai and three years of supervised release for Chen. Both defendants are Chinese citizens. Chen obtained a green card through marriage in 2019. Court records say they began acting as agents of China's Ministry of State Security in May 2021, seeking information about the U.S. military. In January 2022, the two directed a covert cash delivery from China. A black backpack containing $10,000 was placed in a public storage locker in Livermore, California. Later, Chen collected sensitive photographs of a naval base in Washington state and secretly photographed personnel records involving recruits and active duty sailors at a Navy recruiting station in San Gabriel, California. He sent the material to Chinese intelligence officers to help identify potential sources. In 2025, he even had an opportunity to board the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. In March 2023, Lai Liren traveled to the United States and gave Chen a dedicated communications phone. Chen traveled to Guangzhou for assignments in 2024 and 2025 and received two secret payments of $20,000 each in San Francisco and Phoenix. The FBI arrested both men on June 27, 2025. With tighter U.S. national security and border controls, Chinese citizens can no longer use a visa-free program to enter U.S. territory through Saipan. On October 27, the Department of Homeland Security announced the suspension of visa-free travel for Chinese citizens to the northern Mariana Islands. The measure took effect at 2 p.m. on October 30th, 2026, with full implementation on November 1st. The visa waiver program known as EVS-TAP was introduced in 2024 and took effect on February 20th, 2025. But just over a year after it began, serious problems had emerged. One concern was birth tourism. In fiscal year 2025, more than 3,000 Chinese citizens entered the Northern Mariana Islands through the visa waiver program. Many pregnant women traveled to Saipan to give birth so their babies could receive U.S. citizenship. putting pressure on local medical services. Another concern was military security and illegal entry. The northern Mariana Islands are near Guam, a strategically important U.S. military outpost. Authorities intercepted several cases in which Chinese citizens rented speedboats and crossed illegally at night from the islands to Guam. Several senior lawmakers wrote a joint letter calling for the program's cancellation in April 2026. The restriction is also part of a wider effort to stop birth tourism. Since a special task force was established on August 12, 2026, U.S. authorities have revoked more than 700 visas held by Chinese citizens over two months. With the Saipan route closed, another pathway to U.S. immigration status has disappeared. Tighter immigration policies and increased ICE enforcement have shaken Chinese immigrants' communities in the United States. Even some green card holders may face new uncertainty. On October 30, the U.S. Supreme Court declined an emergency request to restore an administrative closure policy used under the Biden administration. The policy allowed immigration judges to temporarily pause removal proceedings. While applicants waited for lawful permanent residence, the court's decision left that protection unavailable in the circumstances described. Experienced immigration attorneys say judges nationwide are generally allowing extensions of only three months. If applicants cannot quickly provide a confirmed approval notice from immigration authorities, judges may order removal instead of waiting. In one court case, a Chinese immigrant married to a U.S. citizen faced a 52-month wait for a marriage-based green card. A judge denied a request for more time and ordered the immigrant to leave the country and apply for a new visa through the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou, China. The immigrant had accumulated unlawful presence in the United States, raising the possibility of a 10-year bar on re-entry. Reviewing old records has become a major focus of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS. Since April 2025, policy allowing faster revocation of immigration benefits in cases involving violations, the agency has moved to cancel green cards and visas for non-compliance. On April 19, 2026, it also established a nationwide TIP hotline to review previously approved green cards. According to a USCIS statement released on October 29, 2026, federal agencies had taken action to terminate or revoke the immigration status of roughly 2.2 million people since the new administration took office on January 20, 2025. The figure did not include visas revoked by the State Department or deportation carried out by immigration enforcement agencies. USCIS is now using artificial intelligence to compare employer tax records with international student data. Even small inconsistencies can be flagged automatically. Full groups now face particularly high risk. First, H-1B visa holders whose reported work addresses do not match their actual locations are said to face three times the risk of investigation. Second, nearly 60% of recent L-1 visa investigations reportedly involve U.S. subsidiaries less than one year old with very little business activity. Third, international students with poor attendance or improper use of CPT or OPT Employment authorization may lose legal status and be given 60 days to leave. Fourth, people working illegally on B1 or B2 visas, especially those repeatedly staying the maximum six months, could face a 10-year re-entry ban. Even marriage-based immigrants with existing green cards face stricter reviews. According to the source, officers compare spouses' answers in separate interviews. Review how often joint bank accounts are used and examine facial recognition information and social media histories. Past discrepancies could trigger proceedings to revoke a green card and begin deportation. As ICE steps up immigration enforcement, deportation figures have also increased sharply. According to figures compiled by the Deportation Data Project through August 5, 2026 U.S. authorities arrested 1,982 Chinese citizens between August 2025 and January 2026. Of those, 1,095, or 55.2%, had been deported, and 98% of those deported were sent directly to China. The share removed within six months. Rose from 20.9% two years earlier to 46.7%, while the median time from arrest to departure dropped to just 69 days. During the 20 year from 2000 through 2019, approximately 40,000 to 50,000 Chinese citizens entered the United States illegally. That number surged beginning in fiscal year 2020 and reached a record 78,700 encounters in fiscal year 2024. Across the six fiscal years from 2020 through 2025, the total reached roughly 231,000. With tighter borders and enforcement inside the country, the figure fell to 29,600 in 2025 and to 19,200 through May of fiscal year 2026. Yet as of May 2026, more than 100,000 Chinese nationals without legal status will still believe to be in the United States, including roughly 30,000 with final removal orders. Separately, amid national security reviews at universities, visas for 529 Chinese scholars and students at 88 U.S. colleges and universities had reportedly been revoked without warning. Amid this intensified enforcement, some Chinese immigrants are moving assets out of the United States. Many with uncertain immigration status, including people who have lived there for years, are preparing for possible deportation. Reuters reported that ICE made nearly 51,000 arrests in August 2026, setting a record for the third consecutive month. About three quarters of those arrested had no criminal record, worried about what would happen to property, mortgages and car loans if suddenly detained. Some people in Chinese communities around Los Angeles have begun listing homes for sale, selling vehicles and furniture cheaply, and transferring savings back to China, keeping only enough for basic expenses. Legal professionals note that deportation does not automatically mean people lose their U.S. property or bank deposits, yet fear continues to spread. Some are using illegal private currency exchanges to move large sums of money. Others are maxing out credit cards to buy expensive watches and other luxury goods to take abroad. Attorneys warn that credit card debts do not disappear when someone leaves the United States, and international fraud can bring serious criminal penalties. Tougher enforcement has left some immigrants struggling to protect the assets they build in a country they once considered a safe haven. Taken together, the enforcement operations and court cases across the United States point to a major crackdown on people who have relied on legal loopholes, deception, or illicit arrangements to remain in the country. This is not merely a minor change to immigration rules. It is a broader national security crackdown on foreign interference and abuse of the system. The rules have changed and the consequences of breaking them may be severe. For Chinese people living abroad or hoping to move to the United States, the article urges them to distance themselves from the Chinese Communist Party, avoid illegal activities that threaten American security, And build their lives through lawful and honest means to protect themselves and their families.