{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415842", "EWTN News article on Smith hearing'Jimmy Lai\u2019s family, advocates press for his release before Xi-Trump meeting'", "2026-09-16", "2026", "2026-09", "Republican", "House", "NJ", "Christopher H. Smith", "S000522", "chrissmith.house.gov", "chrissmith", "https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx", "scraper", "By Tessa Gervasini\n\nPublished September 16m, 2026 at 5:32 PM ET\n\nFamily members and advocates of imprisoned Catholic pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai offered urgent pleas for his release ahead of President Xi Jinping\u2019s planned trip to the U.S. to meet with President Donald Trump.\n\nIn anticipation of Xi\u2019s visit to Washington on Sept. 24, Sebastien Lai, Jimmy Lai\u2019s son, met with leaders to advocate for his father. He joined a Sept. 16 congressional hearing led by Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey.\n\n\u201cJimmy Lai is not being imprisoned because he committed any act of violence whatsoever,\u201d Smith, co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said.\n\nRep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, left, holds a congressional hearing with testimony from Sebastien Lai on Sept. 16, 2026, in Washington, D.C. | Credit: Tessa Gervasini/EWTN News\n\n\u201cHis son has emphasized that his father has never, never advocated violence. Rather, Jimmy Lai used his voice, his newspaper, and his public platform to support freedom and democracy,\u201d he said.\n\nSmith said he introduced legislation Sept. 16 that would require the State Department to quickly assess any death in custody of a Hong Kong political prisoner and impose sanctions on officials found responsible. He titled the bill the \u201cJimmy Lai Hong Kong Political Prisoner Accountability Act of 2026.\u201d\n\nAt the hearing, Sebastien Lai offered testimony along with Steve Yates, a research fellow on China and national security policy, and Mark Clifford, president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation.\n\n\u201cI want to thank America, President Trump, who has been a true champion of my father\u2019s, his administration, and the senators and members of both parties whose support has never wavered and only gotten stronger. That is moral courage, and my family does not take it for granted,\u201d Sebastien Lai said.\n\n\u201cBy the end of this year my father will have spent six years in a maximum-security prison in solitary. At 78, he is the oldest political prisoner in Hong Kong. With a 20-year sentence looming over him, if he\u2019s not freed soon, he will most likely die in prison,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cMy sister Claire was to testify beside me today. A few weeks ago, she was diagnosed with cancer,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cI was with her in London last week as she began chemotherapy. My father learned of his own daughter\u2019s diagnosis from a maximum-security prison. He cannot hold her hand. She wants nothing more than to have him with her for this fight,\u201d he said.\n\nClaire Lai, daughter of imprisoned pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, discusses her father\u2019s sentencing on \u201cEWTN News Nightly\u201d on Feb. 9, 2026. | Credit: \u201cEWTN News Nightly\u201d/Screenshot\n\n\u201cWe hope the Chinese authorities will consider what compassionate release would mean for her, and for a 78-year-old man who has already suffered enough,\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cAmerica understands, in its bones, that freedom dies with the last man willing to defend it and that the cost of not standing up for liberty is not felt until it is too late,\u201d he said.\n\nThe appeal to Xi \u201cis simple,\" Sebastien Lai said. \u201cMy father poses no threat. His imprisonment makes him a symbol of injustice; his death in prison would be a disgrace. Let Jimmy Lai come home to his family and let him sit beside his daughter in her hardest moment.\u201d\n\nClifford, of the Washington\u2011based advocacy group promoting human rights in Hong Kong, spoke on behalf of his friend Jimmy Lai and to remind \u201cpeople that Jimmy is just one of hundreds of political prisoners being held in often appalling conditions.\u201d\n\n\u201cI\u2019d like to emphasize the release of Jimmy Lai would be something President Trump, Republicans and Democrats, indeed, freedom-loving people around the world would applaud,\u201d Clifford said. \u201cIt would be a unifying event at the time when the world really needs it.\u201d\n\nYates said Jimmy Lai\u2019s case is \u201ca test of character, of Xi Jinping\u2019s leadership, of the president\u2019s relationship with his counterpart, and of whether there remains any credible basis for the assumptions on which American policy toward Hong Kong was long constructed.\u201d\n\nThe case is \u201ca litmus test of whether there remains any reason to believe there is a future in Xi Jinping\u2019s China for the kind of man Jimmy Lai is: a child of God, a lover of the real China, and, it may fairly be said, one of China\u2019s greatest entrepreneurs,\u201d Yates said.\n\nLai\u2019s health \u2018is going to get worse\u2019\n\nAt a subsequent event, Sebastien Lai spoke at a press conference at Georgetown University about his father.\n\nTrump has previously met with Xi about Jimmy Lai\u2019s case, which did not end with his release, but Sebastian Lai said he does not believe \u201cit is a lost cause.\u201d He said he hopes Trump raises his father\u2019s case \u201cagain and again.\u201d\n\nSebastian Lai detailed his father\u2019s health, which \u201chasn\u2019t gotten any better\u201d while in solitary confinement.\n\n\u201cHe now has heart issues. His nails fall off. His teeth are rotting. During the summer, he bleeds all over his body because [of] his rashes,\u201d he said.\n\nHis health was especially worrisome recently because \u201cHong Kong just had a record summer,\u201d Sebastien Lai said. \u201cThe heat traps in there and essentially bakes in itself. So we\u2019re very, very worried.\u201d\n\nCaoilfhionn Gallagher, human rights lawyer and leader of the international legal team representing Jimmy Lai, further laid out the urgency of the case.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s very clear that if someone is detained in solitary confinement for an extended period of time, there is a direct ramification for their mortality,\u201d she said.\n\n\u201cThe risk to prisoners detained in solitary confinement is particularly heightened if they\u2019re elderly or diabetic, and Jimmy Lai is both. So this couldn\u2019t be a more urgent and timely discussion,\u201d she said.\n\nGallagher also noted the broader human rights issues and lack of democracy in Hong Kong.\n\nHong Kong \u201chas become a place where you can be thrown in prison for singing the wrong song, or not singing the right song, or wearing the wrong T-shirt, printing the wrong newspaper. And I think Jimmy Lai\u02bcs case is hugely important in itself because of who he is,\u201d Gallagher said.\n\n\u201cHe\u2019s probably the world\u2019s most famous political prisoner at the moment. His case is hugely important, but we think part of why they\u2019ve gone for Jimmy Lai is because by getting the biggest fish of all, it sends the message to the small fry across Hong Kong,\u201d Gallagher said.\n\n\"It makes very clear that their message is keep silent or you\u2019ll be next,\u201d Gallagher said.", 1, "2026-09-18T09:27:43Z", "2026-09-18T09:29:09Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415842"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.1964049190282822, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}