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U.S. lawmakers and Asian American advocacy groups Tuesday urged the country's Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate what appeared to be a "growing pattern" of accusing innocent Chinese-Americans of spying for China.
The move came days after the DOJ dropped all charges against Professor Xi Xiaoxing of Temple University, who was accused of sharing sensitive U.S. technology with China, and a similar case against National Weather Service hydrologist Sherry Chen, which was dropped in March.
"As Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, I am deeply troubled by what appears to be a growing pattern of Chinese-American employees being targeted and charged of spying and economic espionage, only to have those charges later dropped," Congresswoman Judy Chu said in a statement.
She said these incidents are "eerily reminiscent" of the case against Chinese-American scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was charged 16 years ago with 59 counts of espionage, fired from his job, taken to jail, and held in solitary confinement only to have 58 of the charges later dropped.
Congressman Mike Honda said he saw "a recurring theme" of false allegations being placed on law-abiding American citizens of Chinese descent.
"A person's ethnicity should never be sufficient justification for charges or suspicions being brought upon them; therefore, I call on the Department of Justice and law enforcement to delve into their practices to ensure that their findings are solely based on merit," Honda said.
Congressman Ted Lieu also saw "a pattern of arresting and indicting Americans based on their ethnicity rather than the evidence."
"If it was just one case..., perhaps that can be called a mistake. But when it is multiple cases -- all linked by the same fact that the Americans happened to be of Chinese ethnicity -- then we have a constitutional and civil rights problem," Lieu said.
The lawmakers were joined by Asian American advocacy groups such as the Committee of 100, which urged the country's Attorney General Loretta Lynch to "take serious action and provide thoughtful supervision to U.S. prosecutors in cases of economic espionage and other federal crimes."
"We are again experiencing painful, overreaching and wrongful prosecutions brought against many of our citizens, which demonstrate the overzealousness used by some federal prosecutors as previously in the Wen Ho Lee case," the Committee of 100 said in a statement.
"It's a trend. It's a pattern ... Something is not right," Jeremy Wu, a member of the committee, told a news conference on Tuesday afternoon, warning that these prosecutions "have serious consequences and damages."
Professor Xi and hydrologist Chen were present at the news conference in Washington, D.C. and told their sides of the stories respectively.
"When I was brought out of the door, I turned to look at my wife and my daughters, not knowing what's happening," Xi said, recalling his arrest by armed FBI agents on May 21.
"I'm innocent. I'm innocent from day one, because what I did is really, literally, not different from what many of my colleagues are doing," 57-year-old Xi said.
For her part, 59-year-old Chen recalled the "long, dark" five-month ordeal after she was arrested in October 2014 and accused of illegally accessing a federal dam database on behalf of foreign interests in China. The charges were then abruptly dropped one week before the trial was to begin in March this year.
Chen said Wednesday she will be involved in another lawsuit soon because she received a letter a week ago notifying her that the government planned to terminate her employment for many of the same reasons it originally prosecuted her.
"I worked so hard," Chen said. "I don't know why they're still doing this to me, why they're still targeting me ... I have no choice but to get legal representation to respond to the trauma once again." Enditem
