Last year, Li Kai and his family were among
24,000 Chinese nationals who made a grueling trip through Central America to the Mexican-U.S. border as part of the "
run" movement of ordinary people seeking political asylum in the United States. A member of the Hui Muslim minority from the northern city of Tangshan, Li took his family and fled the country after a standoff with the authorities over
changes to his mosque – part of the ruling Communist Party’s
“sinicization of religion” policy. In a recent interview with RFA Mandarin, Li, 44, described his family's experience of “
walking the line,” as the risky journey is known in Chinese.
