A U.S. customs officer at a Chicago airport targeted the U.S.-based Shen Yun Performing Arts company with Chinese Communist Party propaganda. The incident is now leading to calls for a thorough investigation into Chinese infiltration into the U.S. government.
On Monday at the O’Hare International Airport, performers of Shen Yun were coming back from a successful performance tour in Europe. But when they were going through customs, an officer with a Chinese accent targeted the performers with the same hate propaganda that the Chinese Communist Party would use to target religious believers.
“It just sounded like he was trying to put words into my mouth, like ‘Are you being sponsored by Falun Gong?'” said Teresa Du, the tour manager for the company. “So I just said, ‘I don’t think I have to answer that question.'”
“Because we escaped from China, but this feels like as if we were being talked to by [the] Chinese government,” she added. “This is the U.S. I’m coming home. And this is something that should never happen in the U.S.”
Many of Shen Yun’s performers practice Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline severely persecuted in communist China. The officer allegedly also told other officers that Shen Yun dancers were illegal because of their faith—despite all of the performers holding either U.S. citizenship or legal visas.
In a statement, a CBP spokesperson said, “CBP strictly prohibits profiling on the basis of race or religion,” and that it “does not tolerate actions that are inconsistent with our core values.”
Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) called for a thorough investigation, saying in a statement, “We should never allow the PRC, one of the most repressive countries on the planet to have influence over our federal government.”
An immigration lawyer told NTD that the U.S. government needs to strengthen the background checks of its officers.
“You can imagine lots of examples where the government of China would do well for itself to plant people within the U.S. government—asylum officers, [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] officers, any position within the government,” said Jason Dzubow.
“The Falun Gong is one group that certainly has been targeted over the years within the United States. And it’s important for the U.S. government to be aware about that and to try to actively prevent such threats.”
Just last year, the FBI arrested two suspected Chinese agents and charged them with attempting to bribe a public official in a scheme targeting Falun Gong in the United States.
