An alleged sushi-slinging spy is in ICE custody.
Ming Xi Zhang, generally known as “Sushi John,” the 61-year-old proprietor of Ya Ya Noodles in Montgomery Township, NJ, was arrested March 24 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark.
Zhang was convicted in April 2024 of performing as an unregistered agent of the Chinese language authorities and sentenced to a few years’ probation. In Could 2021, he pleaded responsible to having served as an agent of China in 2016 with out notifying the U.S. Legal professional Normal.
ICE says he legally entered the U.S. in 2000 however later “violated the phrases of his lawful admission.”
“Any unlawful alien conducting actions associated to espionage, sabotage or export management in opposition to america is topic to deportation,” mentioned ICE Newark Subject Workplace Director John Tsoukaris.
Zhang met with Chinese language safety officers within the Bahamas in 2016 and delivered $35,000 to an unnamed particular person in New Jersey, based on NJ.com. He additionally admitted to twice internet hosting a Chinese language authorities agent at his Princeton house that fall.
He’s being held on the Elizabeth Detention Middle awaiting immigration proceedings, a employee at his restaurant informed the Publish on Saturday.
“He’s doing good, I imply, given the circumstances,” the employee mentioned. “However yeah, he’s simply sort of ready… to get set free.”
The group surrounding Zhang’s restaurant has apparently rallied round him and his restaurant within the days since his arrest.
“The entire city has been actually supportive,” the employee mentioned. “Everybody’s been coming in, providing cellphone numbers, speaking to his household . . . everybody’s actually supportive.”
His arrest comes as ICE ramps up deportations underneath President Donald Trump’s renewed enforcement push for mass removals and expanded detention authority over unlawful immigrants.
The authorized panorama stays in flux: simply final week, the Supreme Court docket on Thursday sided partially with Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a noncitizen who had been deported regardless of an lively enchantment — as an alternative sending the case again to the decrease courts to make clear whether or not the federal government has “facilitated” or intends to facilitate his return.
U.S. District Decide Paul Xinis chastised Justice Division legal professionals Friday over the federal government’s stubbornness to conform, whereas the Trump administration has alleged Abrego Garcia has MS-13 gang ties and has disputed the scope of the phrases “facilitate” and “effectuate” within the decide’s order.
In the meantime, in a separate case, an immigration decide dominated that Mahmoud Khalil — flagged by the State Division as a nationwide safety concern stemming from his pro-Palestine picketing on Columbia’s campus — could be deported, although his case additionally stays underneath overview.
The Publish didn’t obtain a response from Zhang’s lawyer Robert Hazzard.
