Why Chinese migrants cross US southern border in growing numbers

It’s a bright, windy day in early April, and 71 unauthorized migrants are milling about a desolate patch of dirt in the California desert, waiting to turn themselves in to the U.S. Border Patrol. 

They crossed from Mexico, over a mountain where there is no fence. But you won’t hear a word of Spanish from this group. Almost all of them speak Chinese.

They are a trio of jovial young bachelors – a pastry chef, an engineering student, and a hairstylist. They are families with small children, street vendors, wheat farmers. They come from all over China, and their routes vary. Some flew easily via third countries, like Ecuador, that don’t require a visa. Others spent exhausting weeks traveling by plane, boat, and bus, and on foot, through the perilous Darién Gap.

It’s a diverse group, but they have this in common: They are participants in a spike in illegal Chinese migration at the U.S.-Mexico border. In fiscal year 2021, Border Patrol encountered 330 mainland Chinese migrants between official ports of entry on the U.S. side of the border. In 2023, that number soared to 24,050. This year, encounters are on track to reach 60,000. 

“When anything goes from 330 to 60,000, you have to pay attention,” says Muzaffar Chishti, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. 

The influx of Chinese migrants and migrants of many other nationalities complicates the job of the Border Patrol, says agent Angel Moreno, who works in communications in the San Diego Sector.

“Every Border Patrol agent is required to know, speak, and understand the Spanish language, but yeah, Mandarin?” says Mr. Moreno. Field agents now use the Google Translate phone app to communicate along the border, he says, while agents rely on a human translation service at stations and a detention center where they process migrants from more than 150 countries.

Part of a global trend

Indeed, China is not alone in this pattern. It’s part of an influx of unauthorized migrants representing a range of nationalities much more diverse than three years ago – important context given the history of anti-Chinese fearmongering in the United States, says Mr. Chishti. While Latin Americans still made up the majority of the record 2.5 million Customs and Border Protection encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border last year, people from outside Mexico and northern Central America swelled from 12% in 2020 to 51% last year, according to the institute.

In fact, 2023 marks the first time the majority of southern border encounters were with migrants from beyond the United States’ immediate neighborhood of Mexico and northern Central America. India, with its government leaning more nationalist and Hindu, led these far-flung countries with 41,720 encounters. China outnumbered Brazil. And the Border Patrol encountered more than 15,000 Mauritanians, up from zero in 2018. 

The rising diversity stems partly from policy changes. Europe, for instance, is hardening its borders. As a result, Mauritanians – and others – are seeking alternative destinations. The U.S. last year stopped pandemic-era expulsions and shifted to an app process for migrant appointments at ports of entry. As decades roll by without any change to U.S. immigration law, migrants are growing increasingly frustrated with the backlog of yearslong waits for legal entry. 

The shifting kaleidoscope of countries also reflects the central role of social media. Apps like TikTok not only teach dance moves, but also provide migration tutorials. Posts on the apps give explicit instructions – not always accurate – on routes and facilitators. Communication apps like WeChat allow migrants to stay in touch with people moving ahead of them. At the same time, smugglers are becoming more professional.

Chinese migrants interviewed by the Monitor routinely cited costs of about $15,000 (or 100,000 renminbi, the official currency of the People’s Republic of China). That’s considerably less than the $80,000-plus that Chinese migrants paid in the early 2000s and the 2010s for other smuggling routes such as going through Canada, being dropped off in U.S. territories, and traveling in ship containers, says Ken Guest, an anthropology professor at Baruch College and a Chinese migration expert. Competition via the southern border route has now forced prices for other routes down to between $40,000 and $50,000, he says.

“It appears these [southern border] routes have replaced the earlier routes as the routes of choice,” he says.

Push and pull that set Chinese apart

All migrants respond to “push” and “pull” influences – with pushes such as wars, poverty, or oppression, and pulls such as access, safety, jobs, and freedom. But several factors set those from China apart.

Chinese migrants tend to be more educated and have more resources, often arriving off flights and towing roller bags for the last stretch. Observers also cite China’s prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns, the higher number of Chinese asylum approvals compared with those of other nationalities, and an efficient ethnic network in the U.S. that supports their migration.

In January, another factor drew attention. Former FBI executives wrote to congressional leaders warning about a border invasion of “military aged men” from adversarial countries, including China and Russia, and the House followed up with hearings May 16. Last year, 71% of Chinese migrants entering Ecuador, a major entry point to the U.S., were male, and 55% were between ages 15 and 39, according to the Niskanen Center, a think tank. 

But for espionage, Beijing is more likely to use China’s existing network of diplomats and students, which comprise the largest group of international students in the U.S., counters Mr. Chishti. At the same time, he notes that border officials run migrants through fingerprints, mug shots, and background checks – although, of course, such checks aren’t possible for “getaways” who elude Border  Patrol.

Big push: prolonged pandemic lockdowns

A major motivation to leave China – and opportunity to do so – came in early 2023, after Beijing finally rolled back its tough pandemic constraints on peoples’ lives and the economy. 

“The big factor I would look at is the end of COVID restrictions in China,” says Professor Guest. The lockdowns also made people anxious about long-term prospects there, he says. “People have been looking for ways of diversifying their family income streams. That’s always been why Chinese have sent people out.”

Historically, Chinese migration is usually a collective project, Professor Guest explains. “It’s a family decision that somebody’s going to go and try to get a beachhead someplace else, make some money, send it back. Maybe someone else will come.” 

Mr. Lin, from Fujian province – home to many Chinese expatriates in the U.S. – may exemplify how such forces are at work. Like other Chinese migrants interviewed at the border, he used only his family name. Sitting in the shade of a large tent structure, the 42-year-old said he had been a “freelance” wage worker in China. Unable to make enough money to support his family, he left his two children behind with their mother. He says he’s heading to Flushing, New York, home to a large Chinatown, where he has a relative.

Mr. Lin’s family connection and beeline to Flushing speaks to a distinct aspect of Chinese migration, says Professor Guest. Ethnic Chinese communities in major urban areas such as New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles have “elaborate networks” to absorb new migrants and help them pay off debts and access things like jobs and housing.

Strong prospects for asylum

Another “pull” factor – and something smugglers can advertise to prospective clients – is the high rate of approval for Chinese asylum requests. To qualify, applicants must show that they have suffered persecution or fear it due to their race, religion, nationality, social affiliations, or political opinion. 

As of April, U.S. immigration courts granted asylum to nearly 70% of Chinese migrant applicants, compared with 42% for all applicants. 

Anecdotally, Chinese arrivals tell lawyers and nonprofits that they are seeking asylum because China is cracking down on political freedoms, because of increased repression and surveillance, and because people want to improve their quality of life and opportunities, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

But when asked about their lives in China and their reasons for leaving, the 15 Chinese migrants interviewed by the Monitor emphasized the pressures of everyday life and the need to make more money.

Economics or persecution?

“China as a whole is doing well, but our [area] is not so well developed,” says Mr. Yang, who says he just graduated as a pastry chef. He and his two friends are from Fujian province. They flew as tourists first to the mainland city of Kunming, and then out via Hong Kong, Istanbul, Mexico City, and Tijuana, Mexico, where they paid a driver to take them to this unprotected part of the border. It took only 1 1/2 days, explains Mr. Yang cheerfully, chewing a sandwich all the while.

In China, “low-wage people feel a lot of stress. We want to relax,” says his friend, Mr. Zheng, a hairstylist. Someone from behind jumps in to add that they seek “freedom and equality.”

A weary-looking man in a green hoodie, Mr. Fan, from northeast China, is relieved to be in the U.S. after a 60-day journey that started in Thailand and included being robbed along the way. He renovates windows and doors for a living: “If it were good in China, I wouldn’t have come,” he says.

The woman to his left pipes up, “Tell it like it is!” – to which he adds that he has also come for the sake of his children, whom he has left at home with his wife and grandparents. Children become a topic of conversation as the woman on his right, Ms. Qiu, mentions that she underwent forced tubal ligation. Both she and Mr. Fan say they were fined for violating China’s one-child policy. U.S. immigration judges have found childbearing restrictions a reason to grant asylum, but China ended that policy in 2016.

It’s not unusual for Chinese migrants to first cite economic opportunity as their reason for leaving, says Kim Luu-Ng, an immigration attorney in Greater Los Angeles. But once she delves deeper, and explores their refusal to return, she finds credible reasons for asylum.

“Most people have no idea that they have a case, because they view persecution as normalcy,” says Ms. Luu-Ng.

She relates the story of a client, a single mother, who explained she could no longer support her young son in China. It took a while before the mother revealed that she had complained about the pandemic lockdowns, Ms. Luu-Ng says. Both mother and son were arrested and detained – once for more than a month and another time for a week – over complaints that they could not leave their building. No one could leave, not to go to work, school, the market, or the doctor, the mother told her.

It wasn’t the lockdown itself that qualifies her, explains Ms. Luu-Ng. It’s the arrests and fear of rearrest.

Here at Jacumba Hot Springs, a worn-looking farmer couple sitting on the hard ground say it took 50 days to reach the U.S. border. The wife has second thoughts. The couple traveled from Hebei province, near Beijing, to Thailand, Turkey, and Ecuador, and then north through the dangerous Darién Gap. They borrowed more than 100,000 renminbi (about $15,000) from friends and relatives to finance the journey, but say they were robbed of cellphones and U.S. dollars near Quito. To continue, they had money wired from back home, where they left their 18-year-old son under the protective wing of grandparents.

“I’m a bit regretful,” says Ms. Wu, the wife, who hopes that an acquaintance in Los Angeles can help them find work. “I never thought it would be this hard.”

A companion who joined them along the way, also a farmer, scratches at the dirt with a stick.

“I have no regrets,” he says.

First of two parts. The second article tells what happens next after Chinese migrants arrive in the U.S.

Zheng-sheng Zhang, a professor of Chinese and a linguist at San Diego State University, provided translation at the border for this story.

In one photo caption the spelling of tubal ligation has been corrected.

Editor's Note: The total number of encounters with undocumented migrants at the southern border last year (2.5 million in the 2023 fiscal year) should have been characterized as the total for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the story has been corrected to reflect that.