US to deport ‘dirty minded’ Chinese college student who recorded women using bathroom

A foreign Arizona State University student who was caught last year taking surreptitious videos of women using the bathroom now faces deportation to China, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Zhang Xiaoyuan, 22, was convicted in January on felony voyeurism charges, according to court records. The Chinese national was in the United States on a student visa and enrolled as an undergraduate communications student at ASU, a university spokeswoman confirmed.

After Zhang’s conviction, a federal immigration judge determined the Chinese national “no longer has a legal basis to remain in the US,” ICE spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe said in a statement. “Accordingly, ICE is now making preparations to repatriate Mr Zhang to his native country.”

Zhang was apprehended inside a lecture hall on ASU’s Tempe campus on the night of September 26, after two women observed him emerging from the women’s restroom and suspected he had taken video and photographs of them while inside, according to police records obtained by KTVK News.

The women detained Zhang and took his phone away from him so he couldn’t delete anything, police records said. When officers arrived, Zhang gave consent to search his phone; the two women watched videos recorded on the phone and were able to identify victims, records stated.

According to a probable cause statement, Zhang had not been able to find the men’s room in the building and decided to use the women’s restroom instead. While in the centre stall, he used his phone to record video of the women because he had a “dirty mind,” Zhang later told a police officer who conducted a more detailed interview in Putonghua at the station.

Police obtained a warrant to search Zhang’s phone and obtained other evidence of inappropriate photos.