This piece argues that when President Trump meets Xi Jinping, he should carry a frank, prioritized list of Americans and U.S.-linked relatives trapped or detained by the Chinese Communist Party, showing why presidential pressure matters, how families pay the price, and why a standing, confidential register led from the State Department is essential.
In 2017 President Trump handed Xi a short list of names to be freed, and my parents were on it. That moment changed how Beijing saw my family because I had been speaking against the Chinese Communist Party from the United States. A name in the right room can move mountains, but only if a president keeps pushing.
China’s internment campaign in Xinjiang was ramping up then, and my parents were vulnerable precisely because I would not be quiet about abuses. For years their fate was leverage against my human rights work, a blunt instrument to silence dissent abroad by punishing families at home. That pressure worked in slow, cruel increments until the right conversations were finally held at the top.
Only sustained presidential focus breaks that cycle. My mother remained effectively trapped by Beijing for nearly two decades despite repeated diplomatic efforts, and it took a direct intervention at the highest level to secure her return. She came home on Thanksgiving Eve 2024 only after President Biden raised her case directly with Xi, a reminder that names need relentless follow-through.
My father did not get to come home. He died in April 2022 at eighty-three after long enforced isolation, and because Beijing had sanctioned me for my advocacy I could not attend his funeral. That absence is not an abstract loss; it is the human cost of inaction and of tolerating foreign coercion aimed at Americans and their families.
DAUGHTER OF DETAINED CHINESE PASTOR SAYS SHE HAS ‘HOPE’ AFTER LEARNING TRUMP MAY RAISE CASE WITH XI JINPING That headline captures how fragile hope can be for families who watch capitals trade words without urgency. When a president speaks a name aloud in the right room, the balance of power can shift for ordinary people.
This is not a sidebar to trade talks or mineral policy. The CCP uses detention, exit bans, and opaque prosecutions to coerce silence from people in the United States — and to punish relatives who speak up. That practice is hostage-taking, and it is a direct affront to American sovereignty that demands a presidential response.
Cases like these rarely move through routine diplomacy. In China’s system decisions filter down from the very top, and officials on the ground wait for Xi’s direction. Lawyers handling these cases have told me that permission to free someone almost always must come from Xi himself, which means only a president can truly unlock many of these doors.
RUBIO BLASTS CHINA OVER ‘UNJUST AND TRAGIC’ 20-YEAR SENTENCE FOR HONG KONG DEMOCRACY ACTIVIST JIMMY LAI The strong words matter because they reflect a policy architecture built by lawmakers paying attention. Lawmakers and diplomats built tools across administrations to push back, and those tools need to be wielded with clarity and urgency.
President Trump has made the return of unjustly detained Americans a signature foreign-policy priority, and his message should be simple and firm: American families are not bargaining chips. He should demand immediate releases, humanitarian transfers, the lifting of exit bans, and guaranteed access for U.S. officials and families to their loved ones.
He should also order a standing, confidential list of Americans, lawful permanent residents, and U.S.-linked relatives detained or trapped in China to be maintained and raised at every engagement with Chinese officials. That sensitive task should sit with a senior State Department official who knows the work, and it should be actionable when the president travels.
Senator Marco Rubio helped build much of the legal framework that gives the United States leverage on these issues, and he understands the authoritarian playbook better than most. He has been targeted by Beijing because he proved effective, and that kind of clarity and experience is exactly what is needed in leadership positions right now.
Rubio’s critics have noticed pauses where they expected public pressure, and concerns are natural when families have waited so long. I have had my own doubts at times, but I know the man who helped create this framework did it out of conviction and has the institutional power now to make a difference.
Authoritarians use families as instruments of coercion; that is why names matter. The list the president carries should include Gulshan Abbas, the artist Gao Shen, Pastor Ezra Jin, and the relatives of Uyghur-American journalists at Radio Free Asia — Kurban Mamut, Abdukadir and Ahamatjan Juma, and Hasanjan Niyaz — among others. For these people and their families, freedom often begins when someone powerful speaks their name in the right room.
And under Xi Jinping, there is only one room that matters. That reality forces an American president to choose between accommodation and insistence, and the choice has direct consequences for real families.
My mother’s path to the United States began when a president carried names to Beijing, but she waited years for that intervention to matter and my father never saw freedom. Tonight, other families are still waiting. A name spoken in the right room can be the first step toward bringing them home.
