A Chinese businesswoman who served an eight-month prison sentence for trespassing at former President Donald Trump’s exclusive Palm Beach club has been deported over the weekend and arrived in China on Sunday.
According to officials of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, Yujing Zhang, 35, was transferred to immigration custody in early December 2019 upon the completion of her jail term, the New York Post reported
“I already said I came to meet the president and his family and make friends,” Zhang told U.S. District Judge Roy Altman in halting English as she represented herself at a trial.
When asked about the signal detection device found in her possession, following her arrest, the woman answered, “I’m just cautious because I’m a female. [It's] for my security.”
After arriving in the U.S. in March 2019, Zhang was arrested at a gala benefit at Mar-a-Lago on a trespassing charge. Police also seized her money, amounting to $8,000, but it’s unclear if the woman got the amount back, according to the Miami Herald.
Authorities also noted that the intruder had four cell phones, a laptop, an external hard drive device, and a thumb drive that contained malware. The hardware was all confiscated as part of the investigations.
The woman was then held in custody without bail and found guilty by a Fort Lauderdale federal jury of trespassing and lying to Secret Service agents about what she was doing on the president’s property.
Prosecutors said the woman had claimed she was going to the pool of the property, Law&Crime noted.
District Judge Altman sentenced her to time served, or eight months, in late November 2019, which saw her stay in the custody of ICE as a convicted foreign national awaiting deportation.
Zhang was held at the Glades County Detention Center for three times as long as her prison term due to deportation delays during the COVID-19 pandemic, which paralyzed movement across the globe.
In December 2020, she filed a habeas corpus petition to expedite her removal to her native China, federal court records showed. The paperwork would, however, go in vain.
When the 35-year-old was sent in immigration custody, the feds were still deporting foreign nationals who were illegally staying in the country through the early months of 2020.
However, deportations slowed after the coronavirus peaked infection rates worldwide, which also triggered travel bans.
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