Did Someone Hack US Immigration?
While traveling with the company from Auckland, New Zealand to Sydney, Australia, Shen Yun dancer (name available upon request) who is a PRC citizen with a U.S. green card and U.S.-issued travel document, was denied a boarding pass at the airport. The airline (Qantas) then checked with an immigration officer in Canberra, Australia, and the explanation given was that her travel document appeared in the system as “reported lost or stolen.” This in spite of the fact that she had been able to enter New Zealand three days prior on the same travel document.
Neither the dancer nor anyone in the company had reported her document as stolen or lost—it was with her the entire trip. After multiple conversations and inquiries by US consulates and immigration authorities in New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and Thailand, no plausible explanation could be given other than someone had entered the system and changed her travel document’s status over the previous several days.
Why was she, specifically, targeted?
One explanation is that her father had just come out of China five weeks prior after spending 12 years jailed as a prisoner of conscience. The incident of her travel document denial took place days after her father visited Washington, DC to tell people about his story, and the very next day after his story was published on a Chinese dissident blog.
Could someone on the inside have done this as an agent of the PRC?