Flood of Chinese Migrants at Border Poses Major Security Risks for U.S.

According to a new report out this week from The Washington Post, a shocking 55,000 Chinese migrants have crossed into the United States illegally over the past 18 months – up sharply from 3,812 in all of 2022. The surge in arrivals has included an alarming number of military-aged males, which experts warn could be part of a coordinated plot by the Chinese Communist Party.

Efforts to deport these migrants have been half-hearted at best. In June, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it had dispatched the first “large flight” of Chinese illegal aliens in five years. Just 116 people were aboard that plane.

Simon Hankinson, a foreign service officer with 23 years of experience in immigration services who is now a Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, warned in congressional testimony earlier this year that the Chinese individuals crossing the border are being subject only to “weak vetting” before being released into the interior of the country. He further called this practice at best “a mockery of U.S. sovereignty” and “at worst a national security risk of unknown proportions.”

“In addition to Chinese nationals with connections to the Communist Party, People’s Liberation Army, and other elements of the Chinese state,” Hankinson continued, “it is statistically likely that DHS is releasing aliens who have serious criminal records in China that are unknown to U.S. authorities.”

Most Chinese nationals are crossing into the country near San Diego, where organized smuggling operations exploit gaps in the border wall that divides the city from Tijuana. A recent arrest of a Chinese national in that region who had an active homicide warrant on June 19 and whom San Diego Chief Border Patrol Agent Patricia McGurk-Daniel called “a dangerous person” only confirms Hankinson’s judgment. His testimony quoted former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott as saying, “There is no real response from the federal government of the United States to slow it down. There has not been since 2021.”

Beijing’s increased economic, political, and military collaboration with numerous Latin American countries and a visa waiver policy for its citizens have put the United States at a higher risk of attracting unknown Chinese individuals. Many Chinese nationals travel to third countries like Ecuador and then join caravans making their way north.

Todd Bensman, an expert from Center for Immigration Studies, told Congress in May that the typical Chinese migrant pays between $6,000 and $9,000 per person to reach the U.S. The Biden-Harris administration’s policies, he added, “have drawn unprecedented numbers of Chinese nationals to illegally cross” the border.

While many Chinese migrants are undoubtedly fleeing the political repression of the Chinese Communist Party, there is also legitimate concern that the CCP may be exploiting the open border for its own malign purposes. First-hand accounts have emerged of hundreds of military-aged Chinese males marching toward the border in a manner eerily similar to an invading army.

According to Chinese dissidents and former high-ranking CCP officials with whom I spoke, the sheer economic reality inside China means only economically well-off people could even afford to make the journey to the Americas – or those funded by the CCP itself. “No poor villager can even dream of traveling to Beijing, let alone abroad,” one told me.

Dr. Xiahou Li Wei, a former CCP official who defected to the West in the late 1990s, told me that, from his perspective, “many individuals at the border are not there by accident,” suggesting that they have some specific mission. “Even a substantial amount of money will not persuade officials to take a risk and allow dissidents or critics of the Party to leave China,” he stressed, stating his belief that many Chinese arrivals are “family or friends of the high-ranking military, police, or Party members who have links to the Politburo.”

When asked whether the Chinese army or secret police could take advantage of this opportunity, he responded in the affirmative. As he explained, the CCP has already telegraphed its intention to exploit and exacerbate “social and economic crises” in the United States – and there is no better way to do that than with boots on the ground. “The Black Lives Matter riots of 2020 are their model,” he said.

Yeliu Fu, a former high-ranking official in the CCP Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, stressed to me that Americans may see even more Chinese nationals flock to the border in the months ahead amid the prospect of a second Trump administration that would close down the border. “The CCP knows that the window of opportunity is short,” he said.

Dr. Xiahou added that the CCP “has paralyzed the Western thinking with a myth of soft power,” which now also includes an open border policy. He described this stance as “naïve ignorant, and foolish, but highly beneficial for the CCP.” Those who take the soft power theory seriously, he said, are considered “useful idiots” by the CCP.

If Trump returns to the White House next January, he has specifically identified the influx of Chinese nationals as a major priority for his immigration agenda. However, Kamala Harris’s extremism on the issue as Biden’s “border czar” presents cause for grave concern should she emerge victorious.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.