Chinese national accused of voting in US election skips hearing, prompting bench warrant



A Chinese national accused of voting in the 2024 election in Michigan now faces a bench warrant after he failed to attend a hearing last week.

Haoxiang Gao, a 20-year-old Chinese national with a green card, was supposed to show up for a hearing in district court on Thursday but never appeared, prompting Judge J. Cedric Simpson to issue a bench warrant for his arrest. Simpson decided to issue the bench warrant after conferring with Gao's lawyer, K. Orlando Simón.

'We have copies of the voter registration form that both includes a checked box and an affirming statement of citizenship.'

Gao's legal ordeal began back on October 27 at the University of Michigan, where he apparently registered to vote and cast a ballot on the same day. He used his UM student ID card to prove local residency, Michigan Enjoyer learned after submitting several public information requests about the incident.

He must have had some misgivings about his actions because he then called the Ann Arbor clerk's office, inquiring about whether green-card holders were eligible to vote. When the staff member explained that green-card holders were ineligible to vote, Gao allegedly claimed he knew of someone who had voted using their green card at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

Gao then called the clerk's office back 20 minutes later and admitted that he was the person who had voted and that he had "lied on the forms and attested to being a U.S. citizen," according to an email from Ann Arbor clerk Jacqueline Beaudry.

"We have copies of the voter registration form that both includes a checked box and an affirming statement of citizenship," Beaudry wrote. "We have the application to vote as well."

The following day, Gao arrived at the clerk's office looking "very upset" and claiming to have fessed up to local law enforcement, Beaudry added. Staff at the office claimed they couldn't do anything for him and suggested he find legal counsel.

It was sage advice. Gao was later charged with perjury and being an unauthorized elector who attempted to vote, both felonies. At his arraignment in November, Gao "stood mute," meaning he did not enter a specific plea, the Detroit News reported at the time.

Now with a bench warrant against him, law enforcement officers are compelled to arrest Gao, should they encounter him. As of Friday, no follow-up hearing for Gao had been scheduled.

At the moment, it's unclear where he is. Both Simón, Gao's attorney, and the University of Michigan’s Student Legal Services declined a request for comment from Votebeat, while UM and the Washtenaw County prosecutor's office did not respond to a request for comment.

'This young man’s case is what showed our entire nation the giant loophole in Michigan's election laws that allow non-citizens to vote.'

Gao is one of 16 noncitizens believed to have voted in Michigan last fall, according to an audit. Leftists like Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson — now running to replace Gretchen Whitmer as governor — celebrated the results of the audit as evidence that the system works as designed.

Such instances "represent 0.00028% of the more than 5.7 million votes cast by Michiganders in the presidential election," Benson insisted, even though she testified before Congress in September that "there is no evidence that noncitizens are voting."

However, focusing solely on the presidential election, as Benson and others have done, basically ignores the more competitive races down ballot where noncitizen votes could have greater impact. In fact, a 2024 state race in Maine was decided by just a single vote, and dozens of other state-level races across the country were decided by 100 votes or fewer.

State Rep. Bryan Posthumus (R-Rockford) — who has already proposed a constitutional amendment that would require prospective voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register and when they go to cast a ballot — believes Gao's case represents a much wider problem regarding election integrity in Michigan.

"This young man’s case is what showed our entire nation the giant loophole in Michigan's election laws that allow non-citizens to vote," Posthumus said in a statement to Blaze News.

"We now know definitively that non-citizens have voted in our elections and are voting in our elections. Law enforcement will handle this fugitive, while my part will be to close the gap by amending our state constitution to require proof of citizenship."

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Columbia president's home vandalized as rage over Mahmoud Khalil arrest continues



The home occupied by the interim president of Columbia University was attacked this week as protests against the arrest of apparent terrorist sympathizer Mahmoud Khalil rage on.

Around 12:50 a.m. on Friday, public safety officers discovered that the building where interim President Katrina Armstrong lives had been vandalized with red paint. The message "FREE THEM ALL" had also been scrawled in spray-paint on the facade.

The group Columbia University Apartheid Divest, led by Khalil, posted photos of the vandalism to X Friday morning.

"The Columbia President’s mansion has been redecorated," the group joked in the message before adding three Palestinian flag emojis.

The group then accused Columbia officials, likely including Armstrong, of "complicity in genocide." "The people will not stand for @Columbia's shameless complicity in genocide! The University’s repression has only bred more resistance, lighting a flame it can’t control," the message continued.

Whether Armstrong was home at the time of the attack is unclear. NYPD did arrive to investigate the incident, but no arrests were made.

'Katrina Armstrong you will not be allowed peace.'

The attack on Armstrong's home comes just days after Khalil, a Syrian national with Palestinian heritage, was arrested by ICE for allegedly spearheading violent, anti-Semitic protests on campus. He faces deportation as a result, though the possibility has been suspended as he appeals his detention in a federal facility in Louisiana.

Khalil's attorneys have denied that he is a Hamas sympathizer.

As Khalil has a green card and a wife who is an American citizen, he has been viewed by some as the victim of overreach by the Trump administration and its crackdown on violent protesters in American universities.

However, Khalil and CUAD have a long track record of calling for the destruction of America and Israel, as Capital Research Center investigative researcher Ryan Mauro recently demonstrated. The group even brought members of Samidoun — aka the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which has been designated as a terrorist entity by both the U.S. and Canadian governments — to Columbia to indoctrinate students.

As Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck argued, however, Khalil is a "guest" in America, and his green card is "privilege," not a "birthright." That privilege "comes with terms and conditions. If you break the rules, you’re out," Beck said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio apparently agrees. "No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way," Rubio stated unequivocally.

Meanwhile, ICE also entered two dorm rooms at Columbia University Thursday night, apparently with lawful warrants in hand. Agents left without detaining anyone or making any arrests, however, the New York Daily News reported.

President Armstrong professed to be "heartbroken" over the presence of the ICE agents but claimed there was little the university could do.

"The University has a clear protocol in place," Armstrong wrote in an email. "Consistent with this protocol, our longstanding practice, and the practices of cities and institutions throughout the country, the University requires that law enforcement have a judicial warrant to enter non-public University areas, including residential University buildings. Tonight, that threshold was met."

Armstrong's hand-wringing has not won her any favor with the pro-Hamas crowd.

"Katrina Armstrong you will not be allowed peace as you sic NYPD officers and ICE agents on your own students for opposing the genocide of the Palestinian people," CUAD wrote on Friday.

Protests against Khalil's arrest have sprung up all over New York City this week, including at Trump Tower. Nearly 100 people were taken into custody on Thursday after a mob stormed into a dining area there, according to the New York Post.

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Unanimous Supreme Court ruling: Illegal immigrants with temporary status can’t pursue permanent residency



The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that immigrants permitted to stay in the country temporarily are ineligible to pursue "green cards" for permanent residency if they entered the country illegally.

The ruling in Sanchez v. Mayorkas, authored by Justice Elena Kagan, could affect tens of thousands of immigrants currently living in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status, the Associated Press reported.

The case was brought by Jose Sanchez and Sonia Gonzalez, a married couple from of El Salvador who entered the United States illegally in the late 1990s. Later, in 2001, the two were granted Temporary Protected Status in the U.S. after El Salvador was rocked by devastating earthquakes.

TPS is a status granted to foreign nationals from certain designated countries ravaged by armed conflict or natural disaster that allows them to live and work in the U.S. without being subject to deportation.

Then in 2014, Sanchez and Gonzalez applied for "green cards," or lawful permanent resident status, but were denied, and subsequently sued.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, however, ruled against them, arguing that they were ineligible under federal immigration law, which requires applicants to have been "inspected and admitted" into the U.S, the New York Times reported.

In Monday's unanimous ruling, the nation's top court agreed with that decision.

"The question here is whether the conferral of TPS enables him to obtain LPR status despite his unlawful entry. We hold that it does not," wrote Kagan.

Kagan held that two parts of the immigration laws operate on separate tracks — one track allows some immigrants who entered the country legally to apply for green cards, and the other track allows immigrants, whether they entered legally or not, to pursue TPS.

Though the two tracks can sometimes merge, she noted, individuals who enter the country illegally do not become eligible for green cards because of their temporary status.

"Lawful status and admission, as the court below recognized are distinct concepts in immigration law: Establishing one does not necessarily establish the other," she wrote.

"The TPS program gives foreign nationals nonimmigrant status, but it does not admit them. So the conferral of TPS does not make an unlawful entrant ... eligible [for a green card]," she added.

There are an estimated 400,000 people with TPS in the country currently, and 85,000 of them have managed to adjust status, CNN reported.