Border agents stopped 4,366 illegal immigrants from China along the southwestern U.S. border during the first five months of the current fiscal year, according to data published in part of CBP’s monthly operational update. 1,136 of those were encountered in Texas sectors. By this point last fiscal year, there had only been 421 encounters southwest encounters with Chinese nationals and 175 in Texas sectors.
NewsNation published a segment with one Chinese illegal alien who started his trip in Ecuador because the country does not require travel visas for Chinese citizens. The man told the publication he paid $11,000 to be smuggled into Texas.
The number of Chinese nationals stopped by border guards is still relatively small compared to the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants encountered every month. However, the tenfold increase occurred amid prosecutions by the U.S. government against Chinese nationals for alleged espionage.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced charges in October against agents of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) who are accused of using harassment and coercion in an attempt to “repatriate” individuals to China. There are also PRC intelligence officers facing allegations that they sought to obstruct a federal investigation into a Chinese company.
In another indictment, the DOJ accused four Chinese individuals of trying to “recruit” Americans working at universities to act as informants for the PRC.
China has also been at the center of concerns about the proliferation of fentanyl. Gov. Greg Abbott pointed to the Chinese origin of the materials used to manufacture fentanyl when he declared drug trafficking organizations to be terrorist organizations in September of last year.
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