Two DHS Workers Indicted for Alleged Involvement in Chinese Dissidents

US prosecutors have charged two former and current employees of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with participating in the Chinese Government’s transnational repression program to spy on and harass dissidents living in the US on behalf of the Chinese Government.

 According to the US Department of Justice on Thursday, one of the two men charged is Craig Miller, who spent 15 years as a DHS deportation officer in Minnesota, and the other, Derrick Taylor, a retired DHS law enforcement officer who currently works as a private investigator in California.

 A grand jury returned an indictment charging the two men and three others with crimes committed while acting as alleged Chinese agents, the US State Department said in a statement.

 Matthew Olson, assistant attorney general for national security, said they will defend the right of the American people to engage in free speech and political expression. Those men helped agents of foreign governments in their attempts to silence dissidents who had taken refuge here.

 Prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York said two of the other three men had been arrested in March as part of an earlier related complaint, and a third, Sun Qiang (Jason), was still at large.

 Miller and Taylor were arrested in June. The charges include obstruction of justice for allegedly destroying evidence after FBI agents questioned them about the use of a database of personal information on Chinese dissidents in the United States.

 A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington said, when asked to comment, that it was not aware of the specific circumstances but that Beijing was firmly opposed to the unwarranted denigration and vilification of China by the United States.