Chinese Migrants Are The Fastest Growing Group Crossing From Mexico Into The U.S

The number of migrants arriving at the southern border is unprecedented. Last year U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded two and a half million instances of detaining or turning away people attempting to cross into the United States from Mexico.

So what’s the fastest growing group among them you might ask? Chinese migrants, yes you heard that right it’s the Chinese. Online you can see large groups including many from the middle class, come through a 4-foot gap at the end of a border fence 60 miles east of San Diego.

Over four days, there has been nearly 600 migrant adults and children that have passed through this hole and onto U.S. soil unchecked. There has also been people from India, Vietnam and Afghanistan. Many of the Chinese migrants who came through will end up asking for political asylum.

Some of the migrants made a grueling journey through Central America with dusty backpacks but there was also middle class migrants from China arriving with rolling bags. They told media members they took flights all the way to Mexico.

Some flew from China to Ecuador, because it doesn’t require a visa for Chinese nationals, then took flights to Tijuana. The migrants told the media they had connected with smugglers or what they call snake heads in Tijuana.

They each paid them about $400 for the hour-long drive that ended at the gap. Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 37,000 Chinese citizens were apprehended crossing illegally from Mexico into the U.S. that’s 50 times more than two years earlier.

Many of the migrants have said they made the journey to escape China’s increasingly repressive political climate and sluggish economy. There was a 37-year-old woman who said China’s COVID lockdown destroyed her child care business. She left her two young children with family at home.

When the migrants were asked how they knew of the hole, they said TikTok.

TikTok is a social media platform created in China. The posts found had step-by-step instructions for hiring smugglers and detailed directions to the hole that was visited. It all seem orderly and routine. The migrants walked about a half mile down a dirt road and waited in line for U.S. Border Patrol to arrive so they could surrender.

The land they are waiting on is owned by 75-year-old Jerry Shuster, a retiree and fellow immigrant who doesn’t personally agree with the way they entered the country.