Chinese illegal migrant numbers boom as Beijing tensions grow

WASHINGTON – The number of Chinese migrants attempting to illegally cross into the US has surged since President Biden took office, alarming congressional Republicans as Beijing makes increasingly audacious moves to spy on Americans.

Since Oct. 1, 2022, US Customs and Border Protection reports encountering 39,575 Chinese citizens, a 115% increase from the number encountered in the last full fiscal year of former President Donald Trump’s term.

“When you open our borders, you don’t get to pick who comes through,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) told The Post Thursday. “The [Chinese Communist Party] infiltrating our country is a consequence of the Democrats’ open border policies that puts our national security at risk.”

Between Oct. 1, 2019 and Sept. 30, 2020, CBP reports, 18,395 Chinese migrants were caught attempting to enter the US. That figure climbed to 23,471 in fiscal year 2021 and 27,756 in fiscal year 2022.

As of Aug. 1, the number of Chinese migrant encounters is already up 43% over the number encountered in all of fiscal year 2022, driven by at least 4,000 stops per month beginning in March of this year.

“I’ve been to the border, and I can tell you firsthand: when we cannot control who is entering our country or what they are bringing in, that is a serious national security risk,” Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) told The Post. “The CCP is constantly looking for opportunities to infringe on our sovereignty, and President Biden’s border failures are a welcome invitation for any of our adversaries to potentially exploit.

The COVID-19 pandemic likely played a role in the relatively low tally of Chinese migrants encountered in fiscal year 2020, experts have said, noting Chinese President Xi Jinping issued exit bans blocking people from leaving his country while the Trump administration issued the Title 42 health policy allowing authorities to quickly turn away migrants.

However, many of those policies continued into Biden’s tenure, suggesting the recent spike is directly attributable to lax border enforcement. The State Department in June re-issued an advisory warning Americans traveling to China that exit bans were still in effect, and border agents were still using Title 42 to remove migrants until it expired in May of this year.

“Biden’s self-inflicted border crisis is inviting China – our greatest adversarial threat – to infiltrate our country and jeopardize the safety of the American people,” said Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas). “This Administration’s disastrous policies aren’t just harming Americans, they’re emboldening our adversaries.”

“States like Texas must exercise their constitutional authority to secure the border and protect their citizens when the federal government fails to do so,” he added.

While CBP did not respond to The Post’s request for more information on what could be causing the rapid rise, the dramatic increase comes in a year that has been marked by increasingly bold moves by Beijing to surveil the US. Though it remains unclear whether the two startling trends are connected or coincidence, Republicans say they should not be ignored.

In late January, China launched a spy balloon into American air space over Alaska, which the Biden administration watched cross the US before ordering the Air Force to shoot it down off the coast of South Carolina about a week later. In June, the White House revealed that China has also been spying on the US homeland from a secretive surveillance base in Cuba since at least 2019.

“We have no idea how many terrorists or foreign spies have taken advantage of Biden’s open border to gain unlawful entry into the United States,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) told The Post. “China has grown more brazen over the past three years, and an open border would be an easy way for Xi to send operatives into our country.”

Marshall – who led a May congressional trip to the US southern border the night before Title 42 ended – said Americans should be concerned not only with how many Chinese citizens have been stopped by CBP, but also with those who slipped past border agents and “are now here on our soil.”

“We have no idea who these people are and why they are here, but if the CCP’s actions under the Biden Administration are any indication – it cannot be good,” Marshall told the Post. “The sad reality is that the Chinese Communist Party is paying more attention to our border’s vulnerabilities than the Biden Administration.”

While the vast majority of Chinese attempting to enter the US are simply seeking a better life for themselves, Gatestone Institute of International Policy Counsel senior fellow Gordon G. Chang warned earlier this year that a few could pose a major threat to America.

“Immigrants make countries strong, and almost all the Chinese migrants crossing the southern border will contribute to American society,” he wrote for the non-partisan think tank in June. “Some, however, are coming to wage war on the United States.”

Regardless of the migrants’ intent, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) – the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee – said the US “must confront China and the cartels, and take action now to secure our borders.”

“No matter what is causing the surge in illegal Chinese migration – people fleeing oppression, assets infiltrating our country, or something in-between – it is past time that the Biden administration end its dangerous and irresponsible open-border policy,” he told The Post.