Published in July 2025, “Tell the University of Michigan: Protect Your Chinese Scholars” is a petition calling on University leadership to protect Yunqing Jian and Chengxuan Han, two Chinese academics who were charged in June with smuggling biological material into the United States, sentenced to time in jail and later deported. The petition, organized by Code Pink, a feminist, grassroots, anti-war organization, claims the two arrests and case proceedings are part of a larger campaign perpetuated by President Donald Trump’s administration, targeting the presence of international student populations on college campuses, particularly those from China.
Since Jan. 2025, the Trump administration has revoked the visas of hundreds of international students, including 22 individuals affiliated with the University. Nationally, the vast majority of revocations have been against students hailing from India and China, due to their high enrollment rates at U.S. universities. What makes the revocations specifically alarming to Code Pink and other activist groups is their abrupt implementation and the lack of due process that international students are legally entitled to.
Federal charges were also brought against three additional Chinese visiting scholars at the University Nov. 5 for smuggling roundworm material into the United States. In the case of Jian and Han, the two were detained upon their arrival to the United States on charges of illegally smuggling biological goods associated with fungus and roundworm research. Though neither Jian or Han had their visas abruptly revoked, nor were they denied due process, Code Pink argues that the involvement of the federal government for a minor infraction and the inflammatory language used by government officials to describe the crimes is reflective of the broader anti-immigrant culture that has been fostered by the Trump administration.
In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Rackham student Jared Eno, Code Pink volunteer, said these scholars are being inaccurately framed as dangerous.
“We know this has nothing to do with science,” Eno said. “What the Trump administration is doing is weaponizing what are minor infractions to feed this narrative of seeing international students as agents … making them seem dangerous in some way when in fact they are just researchers.”
In an interview with The Daily, Bob McMurray, Code Pink volunteer, said he had concerns about how the cases are being handled and said the involvement of federal authorities was indicative of specific targeting of Chinese researchers.
“It seems to be very specifically that Chinese researchers are being targeted in a manner that brings in federal authorities, rather than just administrative authorities,” McMurray said. “So, it seems to me that there’s very much a racial aspect of this that’s very troubling.”
McMurray said the University should be taking steps to protect international students who come to campus for research opportunities.
“The University should have a structure and a system of making sure that these researchers know that they need to cross all their t’s and dot all their i’s,” McMurray said. “It should be part of the University’s responsibility to say, ‘You’re coming into this environment, and we want to protect you, we want to keep you safe.’”
Eno also said he believed the University should offer greater support to international students.
“There’s an urgent need to just commit to protecting international students’ legal rights, giving legal consultations and giving assurances that the University will have their backs,” Eno said. “International students and workers are scared, and rightly so.”
In an interview with The Daily, Ann Lin, associate professor of public policy and director of the University’s Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, said the visa revocations were part of growing anti-immigrant sentiment that has been promoted by the Trump administration.
“If you look at all the visa revocations in the spring, it seemed like sometimes they were picking on Arab students, sometimes they were picking on students who had spoken up in written letters, or signed letters, etc.,” Lin said. “I think a lot of this is connected to a common understanding that immigrants are dangerous.”
Lin said the University has a responsibility to protect the well-being of its students and faculty.
“It’s absolutely the University’s duty to look after not only its fiscal health, but to protect its research mission for all of us, for all of its scientists, for all of its faculty and to make wise decisions in order to protect that,” Lin said.
Daily Staff Reporter Micayla Horwitz can be reached at hmicayla@umich.edu.
