SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — After walking through gaps in the border barrier, migrants from all corners of the world are ending up at a makeshift camp near Jacumba, California, where they will wait for Border Patrol agents to pick them up.
And in recent months, more and more migrants are arriving from China, according to data provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
CBP statistics show that in July, 2,216 Chinese were migrants apprehended in the Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector. In August, the number went up to 2,227; in September, it was 3,925; and for the month of October, the latest figures available, the number shot up to 4,199.
“When looking at everything going on in the world it’s not surprising that it’s like this,” said Tammy Lin, an immigration attorney and adjunct professor at the University of San Diego.
Lin said Chinese asylum-seekers are leaving their home country due to the political climate and lack of economic prospects.
And they’re showing up all along the southern border, not just in the San Diego Sector.
According to the Associated Press, between January and September of this year, CBP and its agents apprehended 22,187 Chinese nationals for illegally crossing the border from Mexico, up from just 1,706 in 2022.
“Processing times in U.S. embassies in China are taking so long, it’s getting harder for them to get tourist visas. Some of these folks used to come here as tourists and students before ultimately deciding, ‘I can’t return to my country,’ and seeking asylum,” said Lin. “Now they can’t get into the U.S. that way, so they take these desperate measures to do the journey over from China, over to Mexico or South America and over to the U.S. border.”
According to the United Nations, 310,000 people from China will leave their country this year compared to 120,000 in 2012.
Lin says the exodus will continue into next year, and will include many families with small children.
“Usually, it’s more single men or just the parents. I think it’s a sign of how bad the situations are from wherever they are coming from.”
Like many other migrants, Lin believes the Chinese who come here already have families willing to take them in and sponsor them in the U.S.
“A good portion of people probably do have families here to reunite with, if they do have families here they’ll be released to their families. Oftentimes, they have to put down a bond, but they’ll have to go through the court process like everyone else.”
And like other asylum seekers, Chinese migrants are looking at long and drawn-out court cases, Lin said.
“For even some of my clients in 2015 and 2016, they’re still waiting for their cases to be heard or be finished, it’s a lot of money, it’s a lot of time, a lot of time to be in limbo.”
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