DOJ Moves to Strip US Citizenship From 2 Men Convicted of Working for Chinese Regime

The Justice Department is seeking to revoke the U.S. citizenship of two China-born men convicted in separate cases of working for the Chinese communist regime.

The department filed a denaturalization case—seeking to revoke naturalized U.S. citizenship—against former U.S. Navy sailor Jinchao Wei in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California on Sept. 30 and a complaint against Florida technology worker Ping Li in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida on Oct. 1, according to an Oct. 5 Justice Department announcement.

The two cases are among 40 denaturalization actions the Justice Department said it filed between Aug. 21 and Oct. 2.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, naturalized citizenship can be revoked if it was illegally obtained or procured through concealing an important fact or willful misrepresentation, according to the department.

Navy Sailor Convicted of Espionage

Jinchao Wei, 26, a native of China, joined the Navy in 2021 and obtained U.S. citizenship in May 2022 through a law allowing qualifying U.S. service members to obtain citizenship more quickly.

By then, however, he had already begun working with a Chinese intelligence officer.

Evidence presented at Wei’s criminal trial showed that the officer approached him through social media in February 2022 while posing as a naval enthusiast associated with the state-owned China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation.

Wei told another Navy sailor later that month that the contact was “extremely suspicious” and that he believed he was “on the radar of a China intelligence organization.” When told the contact wanted daily information about which ships were docked and was offering him $500, Wei described the proposal as “quite obviously … espionage,” according to evidence recounted by the Justice Department.

Rather than cutting off contact, prosecutors said, Wei moved their communications to another encrypted application.

From March 2022 until his arrest in August 2023, Wei provided photographs and videos of the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, locations of other Navy vessels, information about defensive weapons and ship problems, and thousands of pages of technical and operational information obtained from restricted Navy systems. The Chinese intelligence officer paid him more than $12,000, according to prosecutors.

A federal jury convicted Wei in August 2025 on six counts, including conspiracy to commit espionage, espionage, and offenses involving the unlawful export of controlled military technical information. He was sentenced in January to 200 months in prison. The jury found him not guilty of a separate count of naturalization fraud.

The new civil complaint alleges that Wei was not legally entitled to the citizenship he obtained. It also said he concealed or misrepresented information relevant to his naturalization, and failed to complete five years of honorable military service before being separated from the Navy under other-than-honorable conditions.

Telecom Worker Spied for Beijing

Ping Li, 61, lived in Wesley Chapel, Florida, and worked for a major U.S. telecommunications company and later an international information technology company.

He admitted in 2024 that as early as 2012, he began serving as a “cooperative contact”—someone who provided information at the direction of officers of China’s Ministry of State Security, the regime’s main civilian intelligence agency.

At the ministry’s direction, Li gathered information on Chinese dissidents, pro-democracy advocates, Falun Gong practitioners, U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations, and his employers, according to his plea agreement and other court filings.

In August 2012, an intelligence officer asked Li for information on Falun Gong practitioners and pro-democracy advocates in the United States. Within days, Li supplied identifying information about a person in St. Petersburg, Florida, according to prosecutors.

The officer later asked Li about his employer’s operations in China, hacking incidents involving U.S. companies, and cybersecurity materials from his subsequent employer. In 2022, Li supplied information about the technology company where he worked and materials concerning its cybersecurity training.

During Li’s August 2024 plea hearing in Tampa, The Epoch Times asked him whether he regretted his actions. Li answered “no.” His attorney, Daniel Fernandez, said the case was “not espionage” and argued that the material Li shared was publicly obtainable, while acknowledging that Li knew his contact worked for and reported to the Chinese authorities.

Li pleaded guilty to conspiring to act in the United States as an agent of the Chinese regime without providing the notification required by federal law. He was sentenced in November 2024 to 48 months in prison, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release.

In seeking to revoke Li’s citizenship, the Justice Department said his conduct is evidence that, when he became a U.S. citizen, he did not meet naturalization requirements concerning attachment to the principles of the Constitution and disposition toward the “good order and happiness of the United States.”

Eva Fu, T.J. Muscaro, Frank Fang, and Dorothy Li contributed to this report.