United States v. Zheng, No. 22-5516 (6th Cir. 2023)
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Zheng and Wu owned and operated the Tokyo Dragon restaurant, where they employed noncitizens who were working in the U.S. illegally. In 2017, Homeland Security received a tip from a nurse who suspected that they were human trafficking. Agents executed a warrant at Tokyo Dragon and discovered that the business had not filed any government paperwork with respect to the noncitizens’ employment. Four Hispanic men lived in the basement of Zheng and Wu’s home. The owners transported the men to and from work every day and to the grocery store weekly, paying them in cash. Other employees were paid by check. A Mexican citizen testified he began working as a Tokyo Dragon cook in 2015, generally working six or seven days a week for 11-12 hours per day; he did not interact with customers. Zheng instructed the noncitizens that they “should not go outside” the house and should not make noise, to avoid being deported.
The Sixth Circuit affirmed the convictions of Zheng and Wu on four counts of harboring illegal noncitizens for commercial gain, 8 U.S.C. 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii). The court rejected arguments that the district court erred in instructing the jury on the meaning of “harboring” by not including a requirement that the defendants acted intentionally and knowingly in shielding the illegal noncitizens from law enforcement and invaded the province of the jury by giving examples of “harboring.”
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