The US authorities have deported a Chinese woman to her country this week, after she was found guilty of trespassing at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where former US President Donald Trump resides.
The woman, a Chinese businesswoman, was held by US immigration authorities for nearly two years, according to the US newspaper, “The Miami Herald”.
Yujing Zhang, 35, was arrested on March 30, 2019 after gaining access to a private Palm Beach club while Trump was there.
Secret Service agents said Zhang lied to them in order to get in, raising their suspicions after she gave staff mixed responses about why she was there.
One of the customers revealed that Zhang had in her possession 4 cell phones, a laptop, a hard disk, and a flash drive containing malware or a virus, according to the American “Business Insider” website.
Yujing Zhang’s arrest has raised national security concerns, as well as questions about whether she was a Chinese spy.
Yujing Zhang, a Chinese businesswoman convicted of trespassing at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and lying to Secret Service agents, was deported over the weekend, federal authorities said, more than two years after serving her sentence. https://t.co/XBcKfAyUxS
— WSVN 7 News (@wsvn) November 15, 2021
In September 2019, Zhang was found guilty of lying to a federal officer and trespassing, but she was never charged with espionage, and prosecutors have not provided an explanation for what exactly Zhang intended to do at Mar-a-Lago.
Zhang told US District Judge Roy Altman that she came to Mar-a-Lago to “meet President Donald Trump and family and just make friends,” the Associated Press reported.
She also said Trump told reporters that he had invited her, which Judge Altman denied, calling her allegations a “lie.”
Yujing Zhang’s was arrested on a trespassing charge for 8 months in March 2019, when she flew from China to a gala at Mar-a-Lago where she hoped to meet Trump. She was then transfered to immigrant detention for 2 years and was deported yesterday. So sad. https://t.co/cS6FU93ixl
— Isabel Sousa (@es_campanita) November 14, 2021
Yujing Zhang was sentenced to 8 months in prison, and the judge ordered her to be handed over to immigration officials for deportation after her release.
Immigration and customs officials told the Miami Herald that Zhang was transferred to immigration authorities after she completed her sentence in December 2019, and due to delays in her removal from the country due to coronavirus conditions, she was detained for nearly two more years.
And the Miami Herald reported that Zhang had filed a habeas corpus petition in December 2020 in order to speed up the process of her deportation, so that she could return to her country, China, and wrote in her handwriting in the petition that what was happening with her “violates the basic rights of any person.” She does not have the money to contact her family in China and needs a lawyer to help get out of immigration detention.