Chief Patrol Agent Patricia D. McGurk-Daniel revealed the staggering number in a social media post on Tuesday in response to a separate post from federal authorities saying that San Diego continues to lead the nation and accounts for 85% of all special interest migrants (SIMs) apprehended.
The US border patrol in California’s San Diego sector has caught more than 35,000 Chinese nationals trying to enter the country unlawfully since October, marking a substantial rise in Chinese migration due to the open border policies of the Biden Administration.
Chief Patrol Agent Patricia D. McGurk-Daniel revealed the staggering number in a social media post on Tuesday in response to a separate post from federal authorities saying that San Diego continues to lead the nation and accounts for 85% of all special interest migrants (SIMs) apprehended.
According to border patrol statistics reported by Fox News reporter Bill Melugin, over 57,000 Chinese citizens have been detained while unlawfully crossing the southern border during the Biden administration.
Reports indicate that encounters with Chinese nationals have increased by over 500% compared to previous years, making San Diego one of the most active corridors for illegal border crossings.
The majority of Chinese nationals appear to be middle-class who are escaping harsh regulations from the Chinese Communist Party following the pandemic, according to Meredith Oyen, a history associate professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, specializing in Chinese migration.
“China has a well-documented history of human rights abuses and documented history of persecution,” Oyen told News Nation earlier this year. “Because there are so many well-established asylum cases providing precedence, it becomes easier for Chinese people to establish it than for those in other countries where precedence is more on economic or gang violence, which are not usually as well recognized.”
She added that the migrants travel from China to Ecuador or other South American countries to the U.S.-Mexican border and then typically enter illegally with the help of smugglers.
The Daily Mail previously reported that a number of illegal Chinese nationals were tearing up or discarding their Mexican identification documents upon crossing into the U.S, which raised concerns among local officials and residents about potential espionage or the entry of individuals with criminal backgrounds
Bill Wells, Mayor of El Cajon, a city about 17 miles east of San Diego, inspecting dozens of cards left behind by Chinese nationals at a crossing point between Jacumba Hot Springs and Campo.
In a video obtained by the outlet, El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells reportedly was shocked by the “sheer number” of Chinese IDs found near the US-Mexico border issued by the Mexican government.
“My worst fears were validated,”’ he said. “I talked to the border patrol guys, they’re all ready to quit. They say it’s just insanely out of control. They think people don’t care and have no sense of how big the problem is. The American people really need to wake up to how significant this problem really is.”
One passport held by the mayor appeared to show it had been destroyed at the border by its owner”
Wells said it was “probably because they wanted to claim asylum and if you have a passport and ways to be tracked…you don’t want to be tracked.”
“You want to say you’re here without anything and claim asylum,” he added.
The current circumstances demonstrate larger trends of swiftly evolving migration patterns, difficulties in ensuring border security, and the consequences for national security and immigration policies in the United States.
In fiscal year 2023, over 24,000 Chinese citizens were apprehended crossing illegally, which is more than the total number over the previous decade.
Edward Alden, a senior fellow who specializes in immigration policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, told USA Today that border protection data indicates there have been more than 10.3 million “illegal entries” nationwide since President Joe Biden took office in 2021.
