We’ve noted this curious phenomenon before, as recently as last month, when we reported that up to that point in Fiscal Year 2023, Border Patrol agents had encountered “6,558 Chinese migrants” trying to enter the U.S. illegally.
Now, Breitbart News has updated that figure, and it’s stunning: nearly 13,000 Chinese nationals have at this point in the FY been intercepted illegally crossing the border, an increase of more than 1,000 percent over last year’s total.
The question is, Why? To that, the CBP admits that it is “baffled.” Interviews with the illegals, most of whom have been processed and then released in the U.S., have revealed little, agents say. Breitbart then contacted Dr. Kenneth Allard, a retired Army Colonel and former Dean of Students at the National War College. Allard, a national security expert, said that most of the migrants may actually be dissidents fleeing the Chinese Communist Party, but that we cannot be sure. He said:
Totalitarian governments like China are great exploiters of opportunity. They recognize weakness and capitalize on it immediately. What we are seeing reflects a deliberate policy choice by the regime.
Looking at the timeline of events relating to China, Breitbart’s Randy Clark notes, for example, that following Nancy Pelosi’s August 2022 controversial visit to Taiwan, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a warning, saying in part: “These moves, like playing with fire, are extremely dangerous. Those who play with fire will perish by it.”
Within a month, apprehensions of Chinese migrants had surged by nearly 432%.
Also, within 60 days of the “Chinese Spy Balloon” episode in January 2023 and the Chinese government’s protest of the balloon’s destruction, apprehensions again spiked: increasing in March by 100 percent and by April another 41 percent.
Clark notes that smugglers charge huge fees to deliver a single migrant from China to the United States, up to $55,000 per person. Chinese migrants may be coming here for non-criminal purposes, but it’s not because they’re poor.
For more, see Breitbart News.