China Has Trapped a Dying Pastor From Coming Home to the US

Pastor John Cao, a U.S. Lawful Permanent Resident from North Carolina, completed every day of a seven-year sentence in a Chinese prison for building schools and delivering humanitarian aid to impoverished children along the China-Burma border. But when he was finally released on March 5, 2024, he was still not free to return home. He has now waited more than two and a half years for Beijing to allow him to come home to his family in the United States – and this year, doctors gave him a diagnosis that turns that wait into something closer to a death sentence: Stage 4 cancer.

Under Article 14 of China’s Passport Law, authorities may withhold a released prisoner’s passport for up to three years (March 5, 2027) – but nothing requires a wait that long. The statute gives officials discretion to issue a passport after just six months, but they haven’t, despite multiple requests by Pastor Cao.

In the years Cao has spent trapped in China, his sons have grown into adulthood; his youngest son married without his father present. He has a grandchild he has never met. His wife has carried the burden of advocacy and hope that this ordeal has demanded, largely alone. Now, with a Stage 4 cancer diagnosis, what began as bureaucratic delay has become a matter of whether he lives long enough to see any of them again.

There is reason to believe Beijing can act quickly when it chooses to. Weeks ago, President Trump personally requested the release of Pastor Ezra Jin, another Chinese Christian leader imprisoned by the state. China released him and allowed him to travel to the United States. If Beijing can make that decision for one pastor, it can make it for another – and doing so would cost China nothing. Unlike Pastor Jin, Pastor Cao is not in prison; he does not have an ongoing criminal case; he is from North Carolina; and he has been a U.S. Lawful Permanent resident for almost 40 years. Issuing Cao’s passport is not a political concession. It is a humanitarian act entirely consistent with China’s own law.

The American Center for Law and Justice, where I serve as Executive Director, has pressed this case on every available front.

We have delivered letters to the White House and the State Department, with the support of 350,000 signatures, urging the Trump Administration to use every diplomatic channel available to raise Cao’s case with President Xi Jinping directly – ideally before Xi’s visit to the United States on September 24. Our letter points out that this would be another victory to add to the Administration’s long list of victories in getting U.S. residents back home.

We attempted to deliver a letter to the Chinese Embassy as well. The embassy refused to accept it. In just days, we will bring Cao’s case before the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva with a formal oral intervention calling for his immediate release.

The Trump Administration should use the occasion of President Xi’s visit to raise Cao’s case personally, publicly, and directly. Congress should press the State Department for a public accounting of the diplomatic steps taken so far. And the U.N. Human Rights Council, having already found Cao’s original detention arbitrary, should say plainly that continuing to withhold his passport violates that same standard.

Pastor Cao served every day of his sentence. He is not asking China for clemency or for anything China’s own law doesn’t already allow. He is asking to go home to his wife, his children, his newest grandchild, and the medical care he needs. China has the legal authority to grant that request. It’s time to act before it’s too late.

Take action with the ACLJ. Sign the petition: Bring Pastor John Cao Home.