The number of Chinese nationals crossing Joe Biden's open U.S. southern border rose by more than 700 percent in the past year, according to data reported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Between October of last year and January of this year, Border Patrol agents encountered 2,999 Chinese nationals at the U.S.-Mexico border. That number was just 366 during the same period in the previous year.
In January alone, CBP reported 1,084 apprehensions of Chinese nationals, compared to 89 during January 2022. Those figures amount to a year-over-year increase of 1,118 percent.
Retired ICE agent and border security analyst Victor Avila told Texas Scorecard that one of his sources in Mexico told him that thousands more Chinese nationals are making their way to the U.S. border from South America.
“Wait till March,” Avila’s source told him.
“The Chinese are coming at us in every direction,” Avila told Texas Scorecard in a Feb. 13 report. “They’re coming at us with the fentanyl through the cartels. They’re coming at us with spy balloons. Now they’re going to come at us just with their people.”
Three Chinese nationals who were stopped and questioned by Texas Department of Public Safety troopers earlier this month said they paid smugglers $35,000 to bring them across the Rio Grande in a raft.
Avila told Texas Scorecard that he has spoken with Chinese migrants who are paying up to $60,000 to be smuggled into the United States.
“I don’t know how they do it, but they come up with the money,” said Avila, adding that they “absolutely” could be sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party.
“This is a national security issue … because we know who China is,” Avila said. “They’re our biggest adversary. … There wouldn’t be a reason why not to introduce nefarious people into these groups.”
The possibility of a security threat from China entering the U.S. through the southern border is more likely, Avila said, since border enforcement authorities are overwhelmed with processing migrants and do not have the time or manpower to properly vet all border crossers.
Last week, Bill Melugin of Fox News highlighted a group of five Chinese nationals who turned themselves in to Border Patrol near Mission, Texas.
NEW: Five more Chinese nationals just crossed illegally here in Mission, TX and are now in Border Patrol custody. We have seen an uptick in Chinese showing up, and a Border Patrol contact here in the RGV says they’re seeing an uptick as well. This group turned themselves in. pic.twitter.com/c8hRhp9kjP
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) February 8, 2023
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