US border officials have logged a sharp increase in crossings by Chinese nationals over the past year, prompting Republicans on Capitol Hill to sound alarms about security risks while Democrats caution against dangerous rhetoric.
The US Border Patrol has recorded more than 27,000 arrivals of Chinese citizens along the southwest border since October, a staggering annual rise over the past decade. It’s one of the latest flash points in bitter border security debates on Capitol Hill, as Republicans use the issue as another line of attack against President Joe Biden in the lead-up to the November elections.
GOP lawmakers and former President Donald Trump, vying for a return to the White House, have framed the border crossings as a dire threat to national security and the migrants as potential Chinese Communist Party operatives.
The border crossings present “a ripe opportunity for the CCP to undermine our national security,” Chairman
Democrats accuse their GOP colleagues of alarmism and xenophobia. A calendar entry by Homeland Security Committee Democrats derided the hearing as “invasion rhetoric and fearmongering.” Outside analysts warn against jumping to conclusions.
“I don’t think anyone can say with absolute certainty that not a single person with an ulterior motive from this group has crossed,” said Gil Guerra, a policy analyst for the libertarian-leaning Niskanen Center. “But on a mass scale, it simply doesn’t make any sense.”
What are the numbers?
The Border Patrol reported more than 27,000 encounters of Chinese citizens between official entry points along the southwest border in the first seven months of this fiscal year, which began in October.
That’s on top of more than 24,000 logged in 2023. And both mark a dramatic increase from around 2,000 Chinese nationals reported in 2022 and 300 in 2021. Overall migrant encounters have also increased during that time but not nearly to the same degree.
Why the increase?
An economic downturn, pandemic-era restrictions, and a repressive government in China are driving migration to the US, according to scholars and immigration analysts.
But a key factor in the sudden increase in border crossings is social media — specifically the proliferation of how-to videos using hashtags such as #TheRoute on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, said Craig Singleton, who leads the China program at the national security research group Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The content helps connect prospective migrants with smugglers and “fosters a virtual community for sharing experiences and tips to illegally enter the United States, thereby enhancing the accessibility and allure of illicit migration routes,” he testified to Congress in last week’s hearing. Many Chinese migrants arrive in the Western Hemisphere through Ecuador, where they can travel without a visa.
Chinese nationals seeking asylum in the US have also seen a relatively high rate of success in demonstrating their fear of persecution based on US standards, with 55% of claims granted in fiscal 2023. So far this fiscal year, immigration judges have granted asylum to 765 Chinese citizens and denied 227 claims.
What’s the concern?
Many Republicans and security hawks say the sharp increase in arrivals of Chinese citizens at the border is suspicious and leaves the US vulnerable to CCP-directed espionage and other potential risks.
Lawmakers worry the Border Patrol isn’t adequately vetting the new arrivals, and some have used inflammatory language to characterize the threat. Rep.
“The CCP is an expert in recruiting Chinese nationals worldwide who are already in sensitive positions to spy or work for them,” the conservative America First Policy Institute said in a recent analysis.
The group has urged the US to pursue robust vetting for Chinese nationals at the border and use leverage, such as threatening to pause all visas for Chinese citizens, to get China to accept more deportation flights from the US.
What’s the pushback?
Critics argue that the conservative outcry over Chinese arrivals at the border is both unfounded and dangerous.
The Chinese Communist Party has an established practice of placing operatives in the US as diplomats or posing as media, said former Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism official Tom Warrick, now at the nonpartisan Atlantic Council. Those pathways are much less dangerous, costly, and time-consuming than sending people to South and Central America to then make the journey to the US southern border, he said.
Rep. Glenn Ivey (Md.), the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee’s oversight panel, scolded Republicans for using rhetoric that suggests Chinese border-crossers are here to build an army or act as spies.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, speaking to reporters Monday, noted that many of the same people who’ve painted Chinese border-crossers as a security threat have condemned the authoritarian regime in China.
Meredith Oyen, a professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, noted that Chinese immigrants have historically faced unique suspicion, discriminatory practices, and violence in the US as far back as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Chinese Americans and immigrants faced discrimination more recently when China’s role in the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic stoked bipartisan outrage.
“The history leads us to have some caution in how we speak about this population coming in,” she told lawmakers last week.
Warrick recommended that DHS work toward “dispelling some of the misconceptions of who is trying to enter the United States and why” by making more data public about those arriving. Better coordination from South and Central American countries seeing an influx of arrivals of Chinese nationals would help mitigate any rare security threats, he said.
What’s the administration doing?
Biden administration officials have defended DHS vetting of Chinese nationals at the border while airing concern about the sudden increase in arrivals.
Mayorkas declined to comment on any specific discussions the US is having with Ecuador on visa requirements for Chinese nationals to disrupt the migration patterns but told reporters Monday he generally favors transit visas to address “exploitation of travel avenues.” Transit visas are used by travelers with plans to immediately pass through one country for another.
He also told lawmakers last month that the US has “made strides” in getting China to accept deportation flights of its citizens.
P.J. Lechleitner, who leads US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, acknowledged a rare deportation flight to China earlier this year and said the agency is working to make the process more routine.
“It’s not always easy,” he told reporters last week. “But we’re trying and we’re working well and sitting at the table with our Chinese partners.”
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