It’s no secret that just as Chinese-made products–such as balloons–are coming to America, so are illegal Chinese themselves.
The usual way this happens is when Chinese students (we are currrently educating about 291,000 Chinese nationals, who make up by far the largest share of international students in the U.S.) simply stay here after their student visas expire. Recently, however, there’s been a huge uptick in Chinese migrants arriving the old-fashioned way–by sneaking in from Mexico.
In the last three months of 2022, a total of 1,862 Chinese nationals were encountered after having crossed our southern border. While still only a tiny fraction of the total number of illegal migrants–who come from virtually every country in the world–that number was still more than 700% higher than that for the same period in 2021.
Data from the CBP shows that the numbers have been rising steadily each month since February 2021. Three more Chinese migrants made news this week when apprehended, along with a Colombian woman, after being smuggled on a raft across the Rio Grande near Mission, Texas. The Chinese explained through an interpreter that they had paid the smugglers a stunning $35,000 each. (Smugglers are known for charging Chinese more than the usual rate, which averages around $3,000 to $4,000 per person.)
Decades of selling us all those Chinese-made products that we’re so hungry for has vastly increased the Chinese per capita income, to the point where even rank-and-file Chinese can afford such fees. More proof that everything has a price.
For more, see the First Post website.