Marxist Network Behind Pro-Maduro, Anti-ICE Protests Faces Congressional Scrutiny

(The Epoch Times)—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 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’ focus expanded to call 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 a 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 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.

There’s “absolutely a connection” between the network and “the anti-ICE riots that we saw in Los Angeles and across the country earlier this year, as well as the stuff happening in Minnesota,” she said.

It would be up to the Justice Department to decide the potential penalties if Singham doesn’t comply with the subpoena; regardless, the groups are done “playing their games,” she said.

Singham has sent money to the People’s Forum, one of the groups named by the lawmakers, according to a July 2024 Instagram post by the organization, which described Singham as “our friend,” and a “former Black Panther and life-long socialist.”

In October 2024, the Manhattan-based People’s Forum hosted a three-part course series on the Chinese Communist Party’s 75-year rule of China. The course descriptions said the regime’s founding in 1949 “ushered in a new era in China’s history” and praised Chinese socialism as a “unique model of socialist construction.”

A Jan. 6 X post from the organization proclaimed, “Our movement is fighting on all fronts,” including for “a free Palestine,” “to get ICE off our streets, and for socialism.”

The organization’s founder and executive director, Manolo De Los Santos, appeared at the World Trade Center on Jan. 8 with a bullhorn, leading a protest against ICE as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem held a press conference inside.

Some Venezuelans have said the protests against U.S. operations in Caracas don’t represent them.

“I think these are paid protesters probably from the CCP,” exiled Venezuelan Jorge Galicia, who fled political persecution in Venezuela in 2017, told The Epoch Times’ sister media NTD.

He said those who take part in the protests should go to Venezuela and see things for themselves.

“I have a really good friend who was put in prison by the Maduro regime in the middle of the night; they broke into his house,” Galicia said.

China and Venezuela have long maintained close relations. Maduro met with a Chinese delegation just hours before the U.S. raid in Caracas that captured him and his wife. He posted a video of their exchange online, saying it reaffirms the “strong bonds” and friendship between the two countries, a “relationship that stands the test of time.”

Jiang Pinchao, a Chinese dissident and writer, told The Epoch Times that the U.S. military action jeopardized the interests of certain communist and communist-aligned groups, prompting them to “cause disruption” in an attempt to steer U.S. society in a direction that’s favorable to them.

“These interests are at odds with those of the U.S. So of course they will use all kinds of ways to interfere,” he said.

Lawmakers said that although America protects freedom of expression, the groups agitating for Maduro belong in a different category.

“Free speech for American citizens is different than foreign states filtering their money through NGOs and the like to sway elections and to sow chaos into our country—that cannot be allowed,” Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) told NTD.

James Moylan, a Republican congressional delegate from Guam, said he considers the pro-Maduro protests “terrible.”

“There should be some restraints,” he told NTD. “We’re just trying to promote freedom, and they’re trying to kill it,” he said. “I think they’re communists.”

He said he sometimes sees such protesters on Capitol Hill.

“They’re right up into your face. I just feel for them. I wish they could just learn and understand,” Moylan said.

Cloud, who was at the Oversight Committee meeting, said he’s “all about continuing the investigation” into the foreign money. He said the committee will ensure “we’re turning off the spigots” on “these foreign influences that are coming to our country solely for the purposes of undermining our country.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to Singham, The People’s Forum, Party for Socialism and Liberation, and the Answer Coalition for comment.

Epoch Times reporter Nathan Worcester and NTD reporter Melina Wisecup contributed to this report.