The groups have organized dozens of pro-Maduro and anti-ICE protests in recent weeks.
NEW YORK CITY—After the U.S. capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro sent shockwaves worldwide, activist groups aligned with Marxist ideology and sympathetic to Chinese communist causes staged protests in America.
The same network of groups that fueled anti-Israel protests and the June 2025 Los Angeles riots against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has organized dozens of pro-Maduro and anti-ICE protests around the country.
One group, Answer Coalition, declared on social media an “emergency day of action” on Jan. 3.
The coalition’s national director, Brian Becker, after taking part in a New York protest, appeared in a segment on Chinese state media outlet CGTN—a registered foreign agent with the Department of Justice—to condemn the U.S. move.
The United States, he said, “might be considered a rogue nation at this point.”
U.S. actions in Venezuela, he alleged, followed a pattern “where the U.S. demonizes … the leader of the targeted country, Gadhafi in Libya, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Milosevic in Yugoslavia … and then the U.S. goes to war; carries out unilateral acts of aggression.”
The groups expanded to calls for protests against ICE following the fatal shooting of a protester, Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation, another group in the network, on Jan. 9 shared a poster depicting President Donald Trump as holding cash in one hand and oil in the other, with an ICE agent kneeling next to him. The poster showed the two figures encircled by red fists—imagery often used by communist and anarchist groups.
The activities of the groups are now facing scrutiny in Congress, with lawmakers pointing to their connections to pro-Beijing U.S. millionaire Neville Roy Singham, who lives in Shanghai and has appeared alongside Chinese officials in at least one forum that promotes the regime’s agenda.
“He is definitely someone that is anti-American in ideology, and regardless of where you might stand, even on topics like Israel versus Palestine, is funding certain groups that actually sow discord in this country with no efforts to actually resolve the issues, only to get us to fight one another,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) said at a House Oversight Committee meeting on Jan. 7.
She proposed a motion to subpoena Singham and hold him in contempt of Congress if he fails to answer it. The motion passed after a voice vote.
Luna, asked about the motion, noted that then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had pressed in July 2024 for an investigation into the groups over concerns about “efforts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its allies to sow discord in the United States.”
The lawmakers at the time named 18 groups in the network they said may have violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a U.S. law requiring public disclosure for individuals and organizations advocating for foreign interests, over their alleged ties to Beijing. The list included Answer Coalition and The People’s Forum.
Luna said she is following up on the matter.
“We have credible reason to believe that [Singham] is an unregistered agent of China in violation of FARA,” Luna told The Epoch Times.
By Eva Fu
