The price of entering the U.S. through the southern border is 250,000 yuan or close to $35,000, said Xiao Jing, a woman in her 30s who is to paying that amount to try to enter the U.S. without a visa. She is using a pseudonym due to the sensitivity of the issue.
"I was introduced by an acquaintance who had been successful [entering the U.S. illegally through the southern border] to help me apply for a Japanese visa and arrange the pickup service after I arrive in Mexico," she told VOA. The person who will pick her up in Mexico will then help her cross into the U.S.
Xiao worked as a clerk in a small company in the Chinese city of Chongqing. But because of China’s economic downturn in recent years, she said her boss first defaulted on wages, then laid off many people, including her.
"At my age, it's hard to find a job, and I don't like the political atmosphere in the country," she said.
If she applied for a U.S. visa, Xiao said, she would have to wait for an interview and her assets and income would be scrutinized. She chose plan B: obtaining a visa to Japan, then buying a plane ticket, although she has not decided to which city.
"My agent [for helping to get a travel visa] told me that if I was afraid, I should stay in China. But I still want to give it a try,” she told VOA.
A woman who only calls herself “Lisa” is a China-based “agent” who is helping Chinese migrants with their attempts to cross into the U.S. without documentation. Because of her work, she does not want to give her real name and be identified by the police.
She told VOA she received an unusually large number of inquiries from people in China in the past few days, and she advised them to get on the road as soon as possible and enter the U.S. before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
One of Trump’s top campaign promises was to make it tougher for migrants to enter the United States unlawfully.
"The day I take office, the migrant invasion ends, and the restoration of our country begins,” said Trump in a October 31 campaign rally in Henderson, Nevada.
He also singled out migrants from China during an April 13 speech in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, describing them as “military age and they mostly are men. And it sounds like to me, are they trying to build a little army in our country?”
Lisa said people from China have not stopped wanting to enter the U.S., because China’s economy and lack of freedom of speech have not improved.
She has created several Telegram groups that discuss illegal immigration. Lisa said the membership of those chat groups has been increasing daily.
Lisa said, currently, the Chinese have had no problems entering Mexico. She showed VOA the entry stamps in the passport pages of several of her clients.
Her recommended route is to fly to Tijuana, Mexico, and climb the border wall into San Diego, California. San Diego is also close to Los Angeles, where there is a large Chinese population. She observed that it is more difficult to enter the U.S. now, and people are kept in immigration detention centers longer than a year ago.
Wang Zhongwei, a 33-year-old asylum-seeker and activist, well-known among the Chinese migrants, told VOA that people had been discussing new routes through either Cuba or Bolivia for months, but very few people were able to reach the U.S. via these routes.
"I have not been in contact with anyone taking this route through Cuba, and we are now in contact with a much smaller group of people [who are trying to come to the U.S. through the southern border] than before. Almost everyone who entered the country flew from Japan to Mexico and then crossed the wall into the U.S.," he told VOA.
Guo Bin from Guangxi Province arrived in the U.S. through the southern border last year with his 12-year-old daughter. He said in the last two to three months, fewer people have tried to take the journey from China through Turkey, then Ecuador and then up through Central America and Mexico to the U.S.
Guo has been listening to the chatter on social media channels within the communities of Chinese migrants who have crossed or attempted to cross the U.S. southern border.
"The people who entered the U.S. border now are the ones stranded on the road in the past two or three months, not the ones who just set off from China. Many people are now stranded in Mexico, Ecuador or Turkey. Some have run out of money halfway through, and some have been deceived by snakeheads [human traffickers], so they have to stay in the local area and work and continue the journey after getting enough money by working for a few months,” he said.
The number of migrants from China that U.S. border agents have encountered at the southern border has been declining since December 2023 when it reached close to 6,000 people. In September, the number of Chinese encounters dropped to just over 1,300, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics.
The December high is consistent with overall undocumented migrant numbers described by the Biden administration as “the highest level of encounters between ports of entry in history.”
In June, Biden issued an executive order that temporarily restricted asylum eligibility at the U.S.-Mexico border whenever the number of migrants crossing unlawfully or without authorization reaches a daily average of 2,500.
The Mexican government has also stepped up its border enforcement with checkpoints on major roads and increased patrols of border crossings into the U.S.
Guo said comments on social media from the Chinese migrant community revealed some of the Chinese who did manage to enter the U.S. without visas were deported.
"Some of them were [repatriated] because they are members of the Communist Party, and they might not pass the interview," Guo said.
In July, the U.S. announced the first large charter flight since 2018, deporting Chinese nationals to China.
“We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said. “People should not believe the lies of smugglers.”
News of Trump’s election victory has frightened many Chinese migrants in the U.S., Wang told VOA.
"The moment the election results came out, the immigrant group’s chats turned into heated discussions, and many people began to worry. I'm a little worried about what the new policy will be,” he said.
Trump's “rhetoric of mass deportations has affected all those who have not gotten legal status, including those who crossed the southern border illegally and those who came with a legal visa and now apply for asylum,” Wang said.
Asylum applications typically have two steps: a pretrial hearing with an average waiting time of about three years and an individual hearing with a waiting time of less than five years.
At present, Wang has passed the pretrial hearing, and his personal hearing is scheduled for February. His case is moving relatively faster and smoother than other Chinese migrants, said immigration lawyers, but he does not know what changes may occur under the new Trump administration.
Adrianna Zhang from VOA Mandarin Service contributed to this story and some material in this report came from Reuters.
