Chicago – October 29, 2025
When President Donald Trump sits down with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week, trade will be the subject at hand.
But it is also an opportunity for something else: a chance to secure the release of US citizens detained by the People’s Republic.
More Americans are thought to be imprisoned in China, some 200 in total, than in any other country, according to the Foley Foundation, which advocates for American hostages and those wrongfully detained overseas. Most are believed to be ethnically Chinese Americans who have been ensnared by Beijing’s strict security apparatus and detained for posing a threat to China’s “national security.”
A smaller number are jailed for breaking local laws, sometimes unwittingly.
A campaign to free two Americans jailed for more than a decade after falling victim to scams has gathered steam following months of advocacy, reaching high into the Trump administration.
In May, the State Department issued a request for the release of Dawn Michelle Hunt and Nelson Wells Jr. on humanitarian grounds. Last month, a bipartisan bill named for the pair was put forward in the House to expand diplomatic advocacy on behalf of Americans held in China.
And in a letter sent last week to the White House, Republican lawmakers urged Trump to raise their cases and those of others as part of trade talks with Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
The last-minute lobbying effort comes amid what officials, campaigners and the families of Hunt and Wells say is the best opportunity to secure their release — before it’s too late. Both detainees are ill. Though they have access to some health care, their families say they will not survive much longer in prison.
Tim Hunt saw his sister Dawn Michelle last summer for the first time in a decade from behind the glass partition of a visiting booth in a Chinese prison, under the watchful eye of minders who sat not 2 yards away.
