What lies ahead for kids at center of California surrogacy investigation?

Guojun Xuan and Silivia Zhang were arrested on child abuse charges more than a year after 21 children were removed from their care.

The arrest of a California couple this week on conspiracy and child abuse charges has raised critical questions regarding the future of the 21 young children at the center of the case, most of them surrogate-born, who were removed from the couple's Arcadia mansion and other properties. It has been over a year since authorities raided the 10,000-square-foot mansion of Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang in July 2025, and the children were moved into state custody. Prosecutors on Tuesday presented a picture of the alleged abuse the children suffered at the property, with the district attorney calling the mansion a "house of horrors." Xuan and Zhang are accused of conspiring to subject 15 of the 16 children living in their Arcadia home — at least 14 of whom were born to surrogates, the district attorney said — to repeated physical abuse.

The complaint detailed allegations of Zhang and Xuan watching and encouraging the abuse of children, most under 4 years of age, at the hands of various nannies. The parents monitored the alleged abuse through a system of 32 cameras in the home, prosecutors allege.In one instance, Xuan walked into a room in the mansion called a "learning center" and saw a nanny striking a child, the complaint said. He then allegedly asked the nanny to hit the child harder,