Toward the end of their winter break in January, a pair of 24-year-old roommates from China studying at the University of Michigan—on a road trip that included Disney World, museums, and national parks—pulled up to a guard station in their blue Hyundai rental car. The guard post was the entrance to a half-mile bridge leading to Dredgers Key, an island belonging to the Naval Air Station Key West.
Half an hour later, they were in police custody. Within hours, they were being interrogated by the FBI, and five months later, in the face of charges that could have yielded more than six years’ imprisonment, Wang Yuhao and Zhang Jielun took a plea deal. They now sit in a Florida federal penitentiary, waiting to be deported back to China after their release.
