AS they were the passengers and not the ones smuggling themselves illegally to Guam by boat, Meifang Weng and Hongjiang Yang said the federal court should drop the case against them.
Weng and Yang are each charged with conspiracy to transport illegal aliens.
Attorney Richard Miller, who represents Weng, moved to dismiss the indictment under Rule 12(b)(3)(B)(v) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure for failure to state an offense, and on constitutional grounds. He said the statute under which his client has been indicted is void for vagueness as applied to her alleged conduct.
“An undocumented alien who pays someone to transport her within the United States is not in a conspiracy with that person and other passengers and is not subject to prosecution under § 1324(a),” Miller said.
That felony offense is targeted at smugglers, not the smuggled, Miller added. “The history of federal prosecution of out-of-status aliens trying to get from the CNMI to Guam, the legislative history of the statute, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, and case law across circuits all support that conclusion,” he said.
“Furthermore, the statutory language does not put a reasonable person on notice that if she pays someone to take her to Guam and she is an out-of-status alien, she will have violated the statute, nor does it provide standards to avoid arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement by prosecutors,” Miller said.
“If the [U.S.] Government can charge out-of-status aliens with conspiring to move each other within the United States in furtherance of their remaining in the United States illegally, the potential reach of the criminal statute goes far beyond what Congress intended, and beyond what an ordinary person would imagine from the plain statutory text,” Miller said.
“The statute does not provide authorities with a limiting principle to avoid arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement against such groups as ‘Chinese nationals’ (so described six times in the indictment),” he added.
“On the [U.S.] Government’s theory, a group of out-of-status, unemployed aliens on Saipan who pay a boat captain to take them to Tinian in search of work could be charged under § 1324(a)(1)(A)(ii) and (v) with conspiracy to transport themselves in furtherance of their unlawful presence in the United States,” Miller said.
Attorney Cong Nie likewise requested the court to dismiss the charges against his client, Yang.
“Here, all that the Indictment alleges is a one-off trip from Saipan to Guam for the Chinese nationals’ personal transportation. The Indictment itself states that the Chinese nationals’ plan was to reside in Guam. There is no allegation of any agreement to engage in any further transportation. Mr. Yang’s conduct alleged in the Indictment is nothing more than, jointly with other Chinese nationals, hiring a boat crew to transport themselves from Saipan to Guam. This conduct is simply that of an ordinary passenger and does not violate Section 1324. As a result, the Indictment fails to state an offense,” Nie said.
“If Yang’s conduct is swept into Section 1324’s ambit, then the [U.S.] government is free to engage and pursue arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement against groups such as ‘Chinese nationals’ (so described six times in the Indictment).”
According to Nie, “Elsewhere in the United States, illegal aliens cross state lines on a daily basis; some are even reported to have been organized by state officials. For example, a news article reported that New York City used 17 charter bus companies that transported migrants from Texas and noted that over the preceding two years, more than 33,000 people were bussed to the city as a part of ‘Operation Lone Star,’ a joint effort between the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas military department that began in 2021 to curb illegal immigration.”
“If among those bus passengers, a parent brought with him or her a minor child and therefore helped with the transportation of the minor, then under the [U.S.] government’s theory in this case, the adult would have committed a conspiracy to transport that minor. And yet, it appears only alien-transportees going from Saipan to Guam are targeted with a Section 1324 conspiracy,” Nie added.
The others arrested and charged with conspiracy to transport illegal aliens were Yan Juan Hu Taitano, Lee Jesse Omar Reyes, Ramon Jose Quitano Sablan and Maverick Ryan Iguel Marlik.
According to the indictment, the defendants orchestrated a plan to transport a group of nine Chinese nationals with “the intent to unlawfully enter and reside in the Territory of Guam, knowing and in reckless disregard of the fact that the Chinese nationals had no right or authority to enter Guam.”
In furtherance of the plan, Taitano and Reyes hired Ramon Jose Quitano Sablan and Maverick Ryan Iguel Marlik to drive a small motorboat from Smiling Cove Marina, Saipan to Guam, on or about July 9, 2023 “for the purpose of transporting and moving the Chinese nationals in furtherance of a violation of law,” the indictment stated.
The Chinese nationals agreed to pay Taitano and Reyes up to $5,000 per individual to be transported from Saipan to Guam, according to the indictment.
On or about July 10, 2023, the indictment stated, Yan Juan Hu Taitano, Lee Jesse Omar Reyes, Ramon Jose Quitano Sablan and Maverick Ryan Iguel Marlik “combined, conspired, confederated, and agreed with each other, as well as others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to violate 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(l)(A)(v)(I), specifically, conspiracy to transport illegal aliens in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(l)(A)(ii), to wit, by agreeing to transport the nine aliens…knowing and in reckless disregard that said aliens were in the United States in violation of law and in furtherance of such violation of law, all in violation of Title 8, United States Code, 13 Section 1324(a)(l)(A)(ii) and (v)(I).”
Besides Weng and Yang, the illegal aliens were Li Xiaohua, Dong Changcai, Huang Xiulan, Wu Yingchun, Kun Gao, Tang Yongbing and Li Kun.
Li Xiaohua pled guilty in February 2024, and was sentenced by designated Judge David O. Carter to one year probation and 50 hours of community service.
Kun Gao pled guilty on February 22. On March 15, Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona sentenced him to a term of 30-days imprisonment followed by one year of supervised release.
Both Li and Gao were also ordered to self deport.
Dong Changcai pled guilty to the charge and will be sentenced on April 5 at 9 a.m.
Wu Yingchun has also pled guilty and will be sentenced on April 12 at 9 a.m.
Huang Xiulan pled not guilty. His trial starts on May 7 at 10 a.m.
Li Kun and Tang Yongbing have not been formally charged yet.
