A Chinese married couple in Tennessee pleaded guilty last week to harboring illegal immigrants and employing them.
Xue Rong Wu, 44, and Xiong Wei Yang, 44, who live in Elizabethton, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to harbor aliens for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain, as well as aiding and abetting the practice and pattern of hiring for employment aliens not authorized to be employed in the United States.
The married couple faces up to 10 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and up to a $250,000 fine for the first criminal charge.
On the second criminal charge, Wu and Yang could also go to prison for up to six months for each illegal immigrant hired, probation time, and additional fines.
According to the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Chinese nationals operated a restaurant called Red Ginger Buffet. At a single-family residence in Elizabethton, they converted the home into a place with many single-person rooms so their illegal immigrant employees could live there, the DOJ noted.
On March 20, law enforcement stopped Wu’s vehicle while he was leaving the single-family residence to go to the buffet, the DOJ stated. Inside the car, Wu had seven other passengers, the DOJ said.
Five of them were male passengers who were from Latin America: four from Mexico and one from Guatemala. The DOJ said these passengers only spoke Spanish and only three of them could provide identification. The other two said their identification was at the single-family residence.
All five men told law enforcement that they were in America illegally and working at the buffet, the DOJ said. Law enforcement conducted a records check that confirmed these individuals were not legally in the United States.
The other two passengers were females from China, who, according to the DOJ, spoke minimal English and provided Tennessee identification cards.
Wu and Yang will be sentenced on April 8, 2026.
Besides these two arrests, the DOJ also announced last week that it had detained 15 alleged members of a criminal drug cartel, including nine Tennessee residents.
Authorities said these individuals planned on distributing more than 1,000 kilograms of illegal marijuana.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at zschmidt1717@gmail.com.
Photo “Red Ginger Buffet” by Red Ginger Buffet.
