Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by the College Fix on December 5, 2025. It is crossposted here with permission.
Federal law enforcement deported a Chinese University of Michigan researcher who pleaded guilty to her role in bringing in a crop fungus to the United States.
“Yunqing Jian, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, pleaded guilty to charges of smuggling a DANGEROUS biological pathogen into our country and then lying about it to FBI agents, and was DEPORTED,” Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino wrote on X Monday.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Jian in June with smuggling in the crop fungus, which has been described as an “agroterrorism weapon.”
“This noxious fungus causes ‘head blight,’ a disease of wheat, barley, maize, and rice, and is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year,” the DOJ previously stated. The department also charged Zunyong Liu, her boyfriend, for his role in the smuggling.
[RELATED: Trump Has Rolled Out the Red Carpet for Chinese Students]
Jian is not the only Chinese researcher to face federal charges under the Trump administration – she isn’t even the only Chinese researcher at the University of Michigan to be federally charged.
In November, the DOJ arrested three more Chinese researchers connected to the University of Michigan.
Like Jian, the individuals were charged with “conspiracy to smuggle biological materials into the United States and for making false statements to U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers.”
“All three men were research scholars holding J-1 visas who were conducting research at the UM laboratory of Xianzhong Xu, commonly referred to as the Shawn Xu laboratory,” the DOJ announced at the time.
The FBI and DOJ deserve commendation for identifying, prosecuting, and deporting subversive agents.
[RELATED: Trump’s China Pivot Hurts America in Every Way]
However, it is concerning that President Donald Trump has not learned from these incidents, as he is still open to flooding the country with 600,000 more Chinese students in the next two years.
While every foreign student from China is not going to attack our country, the truth is that the Chinese Communist Party pressures them to aid in their war on our country, according to an official State Department report.
Trump argues that we need to bring in all these Chinese students so that we can keep propping up American colleges. The reality is that American colleges should primarily serve American students, and then, our strategic allies.
The recent charges against Chinese University of Michigan visa holders should raise serious concerns in the Trump administration about the wisdom of bringing in 600,000 people who are not loyal to our country.
Image: “University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan” by Ken Lund on Flickr
