This is Guan Heng.

Born and raised in China, he lived there for more than 30 years.

So what made him flee?

It started in 2020 — with a secret trip to Xinjiang.

Most of China’s Uyghur Muslims live in the western region of Xinjiang. The U.S. and U.K. have accused Beijing of genocide. Reports say more than a million people have been detained in nearly 400 so-called “re-education camps.”

In China, most foreign media is blocked.

But Guan had been bypassing censorship for years.

After reading a 2020 report by BuzzFeed News on Uyghur persecution, he drove to the GPS coordinates listed in the investigation.

What he found shocked him.

He said some of the largest suspected detention facilities were in Urumqi, Xinjiang's biggest city, and some weren’t even marked on Chinese maps.

He filmed everything.

Then came the hard part: publishing it.

Releasing the footage could mean prison. So he left China — traveling across Latin America before crossing the U.S. southern border into Florida in 2021 to seek asylum.

After his videos went public, authorities in China targeted his family. Police interrogated Guan's father. Officers raided his apartment and seized his computer.

Last year, ICE arrested him for illegal entry. He briefly faced deportation to Uganda.

The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party urged DHS to release him.

Two weeks ago, a New York immigration judge granted him asylum, citing a “well-founded fear” of persecution.

“Do you regret your decisions?” I asked.

“No.”

He says he hopes people in China stay vigilant against CCP suppression. Guan said he was inspired by imprisoned dissidents like Zhang Zhan and Ruan Xiaohuan.

@NTDNews @ChinaInFocusNTD