[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
SECURITY RISK: THE UNPRECEDENTED SURGE IN
CHINESE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
OVERSIGHT, INVESTIGATIONS,
AND ACCOUNTABILITY
OF THE
COMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 16, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-66
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
58-651 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Mark E. Green, MD, Tennessee, Chairman
Michael T. McCaul, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi,
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Ranking Member
Michael Guest, Mississippi Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Dan Bishop, North Carolina Eric Swalwell, California
Carlos A. Gimenez, Florida J. Luis Correa, California
August Pfluger, Texas Troy A. Carter, Louisiana
Andrew R. Garbarino, New York Shri Thanedar, Michigan
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island
Tony Gonzales, Texas Glenn Ivey, Maryland
Nick LaLota, New York Daniel S. Goldman, New York
Mike Ezell, Mississippi Robert Garcia, California
Anthony D'Esposito, New York Delia C. Ramirez, Illinois
Laurel M. Lee, Florida Robert Menendez, New Jersey
Morgan Luttrell, Texas Thomas R. Suozzi, New York
Dale W. Strong, Alabama Timothy M. Kennedy, New York
Josh Brecheen, Oklahoma Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Elijah Crane, Arizona
Stephen Siao, Staff Director
Hope Goins, Minority Staff Director
Sean Corcoran, Chief Clerk
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT, INVESTIGATIONS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Dan Bishop, North Carolina, Chairman
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Glenn Ivey, Maryland, Ranking
Mike Ezell, Mississippi Member
Dale W. Strong, Alabama Shri Thanedar, Michigan
Elijah Crane, Arizona Delia C. Ramirez, Illinois
Mark E. Green, MD, Tennessee (ex Yvette D. Clarke, New York
officio) Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
(ex officio)
Sang Yi, Subcommittee Staff Director
Lisa Canini, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Statements
The Honorable Dan Bishop, a Representative in Congress From the
State of North Carolina, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 3
The Honorable Glenn Ivey, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Maryland, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability.................. 5
Witnesses
Mr. Simon R. Hankinson, Senior Research Fellow, Border Security
and Immigration Center, The Heritage Foundation:
Oral Statement................................................. 7
Prepared Statement............................................. 9
Mr. Craig Singleton, Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of
Democracies:
Oral Statement................................................. 20
Prepared Statement............................................. 22
Ms. Meredith Oyen, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of
History, University of Maryland, Baltimore County:
Oral Statement................................................. 34
Prepared Statement............................................. 36
Mr. Todd Bensman, National Security Fellow, Center for
Immigration Studies:
Oral Statement................................................. 39
Prepared Statement............................................. 42
For the Record
The Honorable Delia C. Ramirez, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Illinois:
Article, Southern Poverty Law Center, May 23, 2017............. 78
Memorandum Opinion, United States District Court for the
District of Columbia......................................... 88
Report, Southern Poverty Law Center............................ 103
Appendix I
Questions From Honorable August Pfluger for Simon R. Hankinson... 133
Questions From Honorable August Pfluger for Craig Singleton...... 134
Question From Honorable August Pfluger for Todd Bensman.......... 134
Appendix II
The Honorable Glenn Ivey, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Maryland, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability:
Statement of Martin Kim, Director, Immigration Advocacy, Asian
Americans Advancing Justice--AAJC............................ 135
Statement of the Niskanen Center............................... 137
SECURITY RISK: THE UNPRECEDENTED SURGE IN CHINESE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
----------
Thursday, May 16, 2024
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations,
and Accountability,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 2:04 p.m., in
room 360, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Dan Bishop
(Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Bishop, Ezell, Strong, Ivey,
Ramirez, and Clarke.
Also present: Representative Higgins, Pfluger, and Suozzi.
Chairman Bishop. The Committee on Homeland Security
Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability
will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized
to declare the committee in recess at any point.
The purpose of today's hearing is to investigate the recent
influx of inadmissible migrants from the People's Republic of
China to the United States borders.
Without objection, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Pfluger;
the gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Higgins; and the gentleman
from New York, Mr. Suozzi, are permitted to sit on the dais and
ask questions of the witnesses.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement. Today's
subcommittee hearing will examine the unprecedented numbers of
Chinese foreign nationals crossing the border and whether this
represents a risk to homeland security. I think we have a
visual. There it is.
Border Patrol records show that from 2007 to 2021,
encounters of Chinese nationals illegally entering the United
States at the Southwest Border were relatively rare, averaging
a little over 1,000 per year. That changed dramatically under
the Biden administration, rising from 1,970 in fiscal year 2022
to 24,048 in fiscal year 2023, an 1,100 percent increase.
In the last 7 months, from October to April, Border Patrol
has already encountered 27,496 Chinese nationals, shattering
last year's total. At this pace, the full fiscal year will see
encounters of illegal Chinese immigrants 2,300 percent higher
than the rate just 2 years ago. This is a national security
concern and it is not a new one.
One year ago, the current Border Patrol Chief and then-Del
Rio Sector Chief Jason Owens testified in a transcribed
interview with the committee that, ``Even without the increase,
people coming from the PRC would be of concern to me. That is
always going to be a group we look at more closely and work
with our partners, with FBI, to make sure they don't pose a
threat.''
I agree that there is a serious national security concern
and we should be looking closely at individuals coming from
Communist China, the United States' greatest adversary on the
world stage.
Unfortunately, under the Biden administration, Border
Patrol agents have been instructed that when processing Chinese
nationals they should conduct short, basic interviews that
include only generic background questions instead of in-depth
interviews. In other words, there is no serious vetting.
These questions simply ask about military service,
education, birthplace in China, employment, and political
affiliation with the CCP, while agents only proceed to an in-
depth interview if one of the answers in the basic interview is
flagged. It begs the question, how likely is it that someone
showing up at the border is going to admit that they are here
to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party or perhaps the
People's Liberation Army?
Instead, that person will likely provide the answers their
smugglers told them to give Border Patrol. Just give the right
answers and come right on into the homeland.
These limited interviews, combined with a lack of reliable
information from China to verify biographical claims and
limited translation services, severely constrain CBP's ability
to conduct rigorous vetting for criminal and national security
concerns.
One Border Patrol sector chief told the committee that it
could be difficult to determine the motives of those detained
who come from distant countries like China stating that, ``We
try our best to figure out why they are coming but, of course,
that information can be hidden, their agendas, their
ideologies. The reason for them coming could be missed.''
This is especially true for got-aways, those who avoid
apprehension and who reportedly pay as much as $60,000 to be
smuggled illegally into the United States. Some of you may have
seen some news made, I think just yesterday, finally a document
emerging verifying that the number of got-aways in total is
quite large, I think about 1.7 million, if I remember
correctly, across the Biden administration. But among them
presumably there are some number of Chinese nationals, if the
numbers that are showing up at the Southwest Border is any
indication.
The Government has no idea who the got-aways are or why
they are crossing the border and deliberately trying to avoid
Border Patrol. But something tells me the motive isn't likely
to be above board.
Some Chinese nationals may be motivated to seek asylum on
legitimate claims of persecution, such as Uyghurs from
Shenzhen, but it is more likely that they come for economic
reasons or other motives that do not meet the statutory
requirements for asylum. Considering the Biden administration's
failure to hold China to account, these Chinese nationals also
know that it is very unlikely they will ever be returned to
China under this administration's policies, even if ordered
removed by an immigration judge.
Some Chinese nationals may have more nefarious motives for
coming to the United States. For example, Federal indictments
in North Carolina from last month show partnerships between
Mexican drug cartels and Chinese transnational criminal
organizations engaged in money-laundering operations throughout
the United States. This was reinforced by testimony from
Federal counter-narcotics officials in a Senate hearing 2 weeks
ago that Chinese criminal organizations have, ``Emerged as the
professional money launderers of choice for Mexican drug
traffickers.''
Recent reporting has also uncovered that Chinese-run
marijuana farms are all across the United States and many of
them exploit workers from China. Transnational criminal
organizations and the CCP see our open border as an
opportunity. This surge of Chinese nationals at our border
without recent precedent presents international security
vulnerability ripe for exploitation.
It makes no sense that the Biden administration refuses to
take common-sense steps to secure our border in the face of
such obvious threats to our homeland. Instead, we get more of
the same catch-and-release policies that have set the country
on this dangerous course for the past 3 years and all that some
can say is that the Congress should codify and institutionalize
these very practices.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today, and I
look forward to their testimony.
[The statement of Chairman Bishop follows:]
Statement of Chairman Dan Bishop
May 16, 2024
Today's subcommittee hearing will examine the unprecedented number
of Chinese foreign nationals crossing the border and whether this
represents a risk to homeland security.
Border Patrol records show that from 2007 to 2021 encounters of
Chinese nationals illegally entering the United States at the Southwest
Border were relatively rare, averaging a little over 1,000 per year.
That changed dramatically under the Biden administration, rising
from 1,970 in fiscal year 2022 to 24,048 in fiscal year 2023, an 1,100
percent increase.
In the last 7 months, from October to April, Border Patrol has
already encountered 27,496 Chinese nationals--shattering last year's
total.
At this pace, the full fiscal year will see encounters of illegal
Chinese immigrants 2,300 percent higher the rate just 2 years ago.
This is a national security concern, and it's not a new one. One
year ago, the current Border Patrol Chief and then-Del Rio Sector
Chief, Jason Owens, testified in a transcribed interview with the
committee that, ``even without the increase, people coming from the PRC
would be of concern to me. That's always going to be a group we look at
more closely and work with our partners, with FBI, to make sure they
don't pose a threat.''
I agree that there is a serious national security concern, and we
should be looking closely at individuals coming from Communist China,
the United States' greatest adversary on the world stage.
Unfortunately, under the Biden administration, Border Patrol agents
have been instructed that when processing Chinese nationals, they
should conduct short, basic interviews, that include only generic
background questions, instead of in-depth interviews. In other words,
their serious vetting.
These questions simply ask about military service, education,
birthplace in China, employment, and political affiliation with the
CCP.
While agents only proceed to an in-depth interview if one of the
answers in the basic interview is flagged, it begs the question--how
likely is it that someone showing up at the border is going to admit
that they are here to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party or
perhaps the PLA?
Instead, that person will likely provide the answers their
smugglers told them to give Border Patrol. Just give the right answers
and come right on into our homeland.
These limited interviews, combined with a lack of reliable
information from China to verify biographical claims and limited
translation services, severely constrain CBP's ability to conduct
rigorous vetting for criminal and national security concerns.
One Border Patrol sector chief told the committee that it could be
difficult to determine the motives of those detained who come from
distant countries, like China, stating that, ``we try our best to
figure out why they're coming, but of course, that information can be
hidden. Their agendas, their ideologies, the reason for them coming
could be missed.''\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ El Paso Sector Chief Anthony Good.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is especially true for ``gotaways''--those who avoid
apprehension, and who reportedly pay as much as $60,000 to be smuggled
illegally into the United States.
The Government has no idea who the ``gotaways'' are or why they are
crossing the border and deliberately trying to avoid Border Patrol. But
something tells me the motive wasn't likely to be aboveboard.
Some Chinese nationals may be motivated to seek asylum on
legitimate claims of persecution, such as Uyghurs from Xinjiang. But it
is more likely that they come for economic reasons or other motives
that do not meet the statutory requirements for asylum.
And considering the Biden administration's failure to hold China to
account, these Chinese nationals also know that it is very unlikely
that they will ever be returned to China, under this administration's
policies, even if ordered removed by an Immigration Judge.
Some Chinese nationals may have more nefarious motives for coming
to the United States. For example, Federal indictments in North
Carolina from last month show partnerships between Mexican drug cartels
and Chinese transnational criminal organizations engaged in money-
laundering operations throughout the United States.
This was reinforced by testimony from Federal counter-narcotics
officials in a Senate hearing 2 weeks ago that Chinese criminal
organizations have ``emerged as the professional money launderers of
choice for Mexican drug traffickers.''
Recent reporting has also uncovered that Chinese-run marijuana
farms are all across the United States, and many of them exploit
workers from China.
Transnational criminal organizations and the CCP see our open
border as an opportunity. This surge of Chinese nationals at our border
without recent precedent presents a major national security
vulnerability, ripe for exploitation.
It makes no sense that the Biden administration refuses to take
common-sense steps to secure our border in the face of such obvious
threats to our homeland.
Instead, we get more of the same catch-and-release policies that
have set the country on this dangerous course for the past 3 years, and
all that some can say is that the Congress should codify and
institutionalize these very practices.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today, and I look
forward to their testimony.
Chairman Bishop. Well, give me a second. I am getting to
the part where I recognize you. I now recognize the Ranking
Member, the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Ivey, for his opening
statement.
Mr. Ivey. I was going to say that might be sufficient, just
the----
Chairman Bishop. I figured there was something else in
there I probably should read, but you are exactly right. That
was easy enough.
Mr. Ivey. Well, I thank the Chairman for that. It is May.
This is the month when we typically celebrate and honor the
culture, heritage, achievements, and contributions of Asian
Americans, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific
Islanders, and I want to make sure that we honor those
contributions and steer away from any kind of concerns or
rhetoric with respect to--I want to make sure that our friends
from the Asian communities are not mischaracterized or
misunderstood by who they are and what they are doing.
You know, there is a lot of rhetoric, I have got to say,
that I hear. Recently, I have got, for example, despite the
invasion rhetoric some Republican colleagues are spreading, it
is only a tiny fraction of border crossers who are coming from
China. In the first 4 months of this fiscal year less than 2
percent, 2.5 percent of border crossers were Chinese nationals.
In fact, Chinese nationals are neither one of the fastest-
growing nationalities apprehended along the Southwest Border
nor one of the top 10 nationalities apprehended at the U.S.
border.
You know, I have seen and heard rhetoric that Chinese
immigrants coming across the border to ``build an army.'' One
statement was made without any evidence that ``it's virtually
certain'' that some Chinese border crossers are spies. One
Republican's comments calling Chinese immigration an invasion,
and I think that is the kind of rhetoric we want to steer away
from.
I do think it is important to say this, that we have got
people crossing the border for a variety of reasons. I think
part of it is economic, as the Chairman referenced. Part of it,
and we have had some hearings with respect to the Uyghurs, it
is a bit ironic that this subcommittee has held hearings about
that and it goes to the repression of the Uyghurs and in some
instances forced labor or slave labor.
I want to make sure that we keep those sorts of pressures
in mind in addition to the national and international migration
patterns that are in reference here.
I think we should keep in mind some of the comments that
the Border Patrol chiefs have made. We had recent conversations
with them. Here is what they did say about Chinese border
crossers. One statement, ``That specific demographic doesn't
cause me concern.''
Another one, ``We treat everybody the same. It doesn't
matter where they come from. It doesn't matter what your
nationality is, what your religious beliefs are. We're going to
treat everybody exactly the same. They run through the same
screening, the same processing, the same background checks.
Everything we have access to we are going to check on each and
every person.''
There is another exchange, ``Question: Do you know what
reasons Chinese nationals are giving in their interviews for
coming? Answer: The typical reason is the same as for most
migrants, for work or a better life.''
So, you know, let's keep all that stuff in mind as we sort-
of work our way through this. I think a big piece of where we
ought to be going is legislation. I was not a full fan of the
Senate bill that was proposed a few months ago by Senator
Lankford and others, but I thought it was a big step in the
right direction.
I was very disappointed that former President Trump
essentially killed the bill, an opportunity to work on the
legislation, by statements he made publicly and the adoption of
those positions by the Speaker here and most of our House
Republicans in general.
I would say this. I mean, I know that I have had colleagues
on this committee and on the Judiciary Committee raise concerns
about the legislation that was proposed from the Senate, but I
would just remind my colleagues that we have this amendment
process here. If we bring up legislation in the committee, they
can offer amendments to address it.
Guess what? They are the Majority on not only both
committees but on the overall floor as well, so they could
adapt amendments if they wanted to. But instead of moving
forward and working on this type of legislation, whether they
think it needs to be amended or not, they are not bringing it
up and we are focusing on other things instead.
I was heartened to see that Connecticut Senator Chris
Murphy stated, I think yesterday, well, it may have been
earlier today, that he wants to renew the push for the
bipartisan legislation that was proposed in the Senate. I think
that is a great idea because it addresses some of the concerns
that are underlying this particular hearing, the need for more
border agents, the need to make the process work faster, the
need to get more judges who can adjudicate these cases more
quickly because that will help to address some of the problems
that we are facing, I think, at the border and with the
migration patterns.
I also think that the funding piece is important. I know
there are a lot of times I have heard comments that the
resources don't matter, at least from my Republican colleagues,
but when we get testimony from Border Patrol agents, even in
this committee they always say, yes, we need more resources.
We don't have enough people to cover the border. We don't
have enough money to retain many of the people that we have.
They leave to go do other things and get paid larger salaries
for less rigorous work. We don't have as many judges as we need
to handle all these cases, so I am hoping we can address those
things as well.
So I want to thank the panel for being here today. I look
forward to your testimony and not necessarily that I am going
to agree with everything or you are going to agree with
everything I say or that you will even agree with each other.
That is not necessarily the point.
But I do appreciate the fact that, and I thank the Chairman
for this, bringing in people who can shed light on what is
going on down there. There is just a lot of partisanism around
this and, you know, that goes with the territory. This is not
only Washington, DC, but Capitol Hill.
But I think we need to hit a point, and we did this with
the subcommittee hearings we had with respect to the Uyghurs
and I raised African, you know, countries that had forced labor
going on there as well.
We have shown we can do it, and I am hoping we can do that
again here in this instance and ultimately find our way to
legislation that can address the overall problems, not just
with respect to Chinese migrants, but all of the issues at the
border as well.
With that, I yield back.
Chairman Bishop. Thank you, Ranking Member Ivey.
Other Members of the committee are reminded that opening
statements may be submitted for the record.
I am pleased that we have a distinguished panel of
witnesses before us today to examine this topic.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Bishop. Let the record reflect that the witnesses
have answered in the affirmative. Thank you. You may be seated.
I would like to formally introduce you for the hearing. Mr.
Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in the Heritage
Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center. He
previously served for more than 20 years in the State
Department as a foreign service officer.
Mr. Craig Singleton is a senior fellow at the Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies where he also serves as senior
director in the China Program.
Dr. Meredith Oyen is an associate professor of history at
the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Mr. Todd Bensman is an author and journalist currently
serving as senior national security fellow at the Center for
Immigration Studies.
I thank all the witnesses for being here today, and we will
now hear from the witnesses to summarize your statements for 5
minutes each.
I recognize Mr. Hankinson for that purpose for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF SIMON R. HANKINSON, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, BORDER
SECURITY AND IMMIGRATION CENTER, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Mr. Hankinson. Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member Ivey,
Members of the committee, I served as a foreign service officer
in 7 countries. I have adjudicated thousands of visa
applications to facilitate lawful visits and immigration while
excluding aliens who were legally inadmissible.
The visa process overseas stands in total contrast to what
happens at the U.S. border today. Over the past 2 years I have
visited the border in Arizona, California, New York, and Texas.
I saw nationals of many countries apprehended by the Border
Patrol.
In San Diego last March, I watched Border Patrol dropping
off dozens of aliens, including Chinese, at a bus stop. Such
mass release of people who entered the country illegally
happens every day, multiple times at multiple locations. At
best this is a mockery of U.S. immigration law and sovereignty,
and at worst it is a huge national security and community
safety risk.
In addition to many Chinese with connections to the
Communist Party, People's Liberation Army, and other state
entities, it is statistically probable that DHS is releasing
people with criminal records. According to U.S. law, DHS should
detain aliens caught entering illegally, but the Biden
administration has replaced border control with mass processing
and release and they have abused immigration parole at an
unprecedented scale.
In January 2021, the Border Patrol encountered 17 Chinese
between ports of entry. This year in January it was 3,700. I
won't repeat the rest of the numbers but we are close to 50,000
already this fiscal year.
Nearly all of them are being released into an asylum
process that will take years to conclude and then those
eventually ordered removed are unlikely to be deported because
the Chinese government does not cooperate in accepting their
nationals. In fact, in fiscal year 2023, ICE removed a total of
288 Chinese, leaving up to 100,000 still in the United States
despite final orders of removal.
Most Chinese entering the United States illegally are
seeking employment. They use asylum claims to enter, to remain,
and to work. Illegal immigration ebbs and flows corresponding
to a risk-and-reward calculation, and the reason that Chinese
are coming in great numbers today is simply because they can.
The world-wide awareness of our open borders spread by social
media shows them how.
The Chinese have massive economic investments in Latin
America. They have close ties with governments, including
Brazil, Cuba, and Venezuela. They don't need visas to fly to
Ecuador after which they can continue by land to the United
States.
Tomorrow, May 17, Air China begins direct flights from
Beijing to Havana. Meanwhile, Chinese investments in the United
States, both legal and illegitimate, are growing, providing
many new opportunities for work. More people are on the way.
Now, overseas and in-person interview by a consular officer
is the first line of vetting for visa applicants. This is
buttressed by staff who know local languages, customs, and
news, and in larger embassies we have other Federal agencies
who can assist with investigations.
The second line of vetting is through automatic checks of
U.S. Government databases. Applicants are frequently refused
visas due to adverse information that would not have been
discovered had they simply showed up at the border with no
identity documents.
Meanwhile at the border today, most so-called national
security decisions of who gets into our country are no longer
made by American officers. Under President Biden's policies,
what was once a privilege has become a right. Despite what the
administration wishes the public to believe, there is no real
vetting of those released at the border, nor of those allowed
in under parole programs, much less the got-aways who enter
entirely without inspection.
The official visa front door competes with a wide-open back
door at the border where there are no routine criminal
background checks for home country. Unless a foreign national
has a record held by U.S. agencies, DHS is flying blind.
Concerning China specifically, CBP agents have reportedly
reduced the number of standard questions asked of inadmissible
Chinese from 40 to 5, but however many the questions the
process relies on an alien telling the truth. Even if CBP
requests additional information on a particular individual,
China routinely ignores U.S. requests for verification of
nationality and they reportedly hide domestic records of
criminal and corruption cases.
DHS releases most aliens with a notice to appear in
immigration court far in the future and they are then free to
go where they want with no easy way for ICE to find them. There
are more than 6 million aliens on ICE's nondetained docket and
from only about 184,000 are tracked and only 2 percent of those
with GPS monitors.
To close this dangerous loophole the United States needs to
reimplement agreements with Mexico and Central America so that
inadmissible aliens are not released into the interior pending
the decision in their asylum cases. Given the population,
economy, and politics of China, we can never meet the demand
for those seeking to enter illegally. At some point the United
States will either have to remove those who are ineligible to
enter or remain or else abandon the rule of law. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hankinson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Simon R. Hankinson
May 16, 2024
Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member Ivey, and Members of the committee,
my name is Simon Hankinson. I am a senior research fellow at The
Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are my own
and should not be construed as representing any official position of
The Heritage Foundation.
introduction
I spent 23 years as a Foreign Service officer with the Department
of State, serving at U.S. diplomatic missions in 7 countries. For much
of that time, I adjudicated visa cases as a consular officer or
supervised others who did. I and my staff conducted interviews,
investigated fraud, worked with host country law enforcement, and
cooperated with other U.S. agencies to enforce immigration laws of the
United States. The mission was clear: Facilitate lawful visits,
commerce, and immigration while excluding those aliens who were
inadmissible under our laws for a variety of reasons. Since January
2021, the Department of State's consular mission overseas that I worked
2 decades to support stands in almost total contrast to what we are
seeing at the U.S. land borders, where the Biden administration
oversees a de facto open border.
In May 2022, I retired from the State Department. Over the past 2
years, I have visited the U.S. border at Malone, New York; McAllen,
Eagle Pass, and Del Rio, Texas; Yuma, Arizona; and San Diego,
California. In Arizona, Texas, and especially California, I witnessed
people from China among the nationals of many countries apprehended by
the Border Patrol. In San Diego, I saw several groups of Chinese men
released by Border Patrol. Mass release like this of people who entered
the country illegally happens nearly every day, multiple times, at
multiple locations. This continuous mass release of inadmissible aliens
is, at best, a mockery of U.S. immigration law, labor law, and national
sovereignty. At worst, it is a national security and community safety
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, it is statistically likely that DHS is
releasing aliens who have serious criminal records in China that are
unknown to U.S. authorities. Extrapolating from recidivism rates among
U.S. violent offenders after release from prison, we can be certain
that the mass release of aliens who would never pass a background check
will result in preventable crimes committed in the United States in
future.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Simon Hankinson, Lora Ries, and Matthew Kuckelman,
Backgrounder: ``Biden's Open Borders and Non-Enforcement Mean Americans
Play `Recidivist Roulette' with Criminal Aliens,'' The Heritage
Foundation, May 7, 2024, https://www.heritage.org/immigration/report/
bidens-open-borders-and-non-enforcement-mean-americans-play-recidivist-
roulette.
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Furthermore, while those inadmissible aliens arrested before being
released at least have to provide biometric data that will then be
permanently assigned to them, even should they attempt to change their
identity in future, the ``gotaways'' who enter the United States
without inspection or contact with any official do not even get that
weak level of vetting. The Biden administration's continued
prioritization of continued flow of illegal migration over securing the
border, and DHS's resulting diversion of staff to processing aliens
into the country, makes entry without inspection easier than ever.
So far this year, more than 24,000 Chinese nationals have entered
the United States illegally over the southwest land border.\2\ It
appears nearly all are being released, into an asylum process that will
take many years to conclude. At the end of that process, even those
Chinese nationals denied asylum and ordered removed are extremely
unlikely to be deported. The Chinese government has long been deemed
``recalcitrant,'' which is the term ICE uses for countries that are
uncooperative with the U.S. Government in accepting their nationals who
are ordered removed by U.S. immigration courts. ``The Chinese
government . . . will accept repatriation of Chinese citizens who have
been verified to be from mainland China,'' according to their Embassy
in Washington.\3\ However, they do not interview and document their
nationals timely and accurately when requested by ICE, as cooperative
countries do (and as the United States does for its own nationals when
asked). According to a 2021 Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
report, ``the PRC has ignored more than 1,300 ICE requests for travel
documents since October 2017. Consequently, ICE has been forced to
release more than 1,000 PRC nationals from custody, many with
convictions for violent or other serious crimes.''\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, ``Nationwide Encounters,'' https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/
stats/nationwide-encounters, (accessed May 10, 2024).
\3\ David Noriega and Julia Ainsley, ``U.S. and China in high-level
talks to deport more Chinese nationals, Mayorkas says,'' NBC News,
April 5, 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/us-china-high-
level-talks-deport-chinese-nationals-mayorkas-says-rcna146590.
\4\ Department of Homeland Security, ``DHS Strategic Action Plan to
Counter the Threat Posed by the People's Republic of China,'' January
12, 2021, https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/
21_0112_plcy_dhs-china-sap.pdf.
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A ``DHS Strategic Action Plan to Counter the Threat Posed by the
People's Republic of China,'' written at the tail end of the Trump
administration, claimed that DHS ``has and will continue to augment
immigration vetting and monitoring, including for student and tourist
visas, and will return PRC visa-overstays who continue to undermine
visa integrity.\5\ This has not been the case under the Biden
administration. In fiscal year 2023, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) deported a total of 288 Chinese back to China.\6\ As
noted in a 2019 DHS Inspector General report, some foreign embassies
``do not conduct timely interviews with detainees or notify ICE when
additional information is required to facilitate travel, delaying
removals.''\7\ ICE maintains a list of ``Recalcitrant'' countries that
do not facilitate the repatriation of their nationals, as well as a
list of countries ``At Risk of Non-Compliance.''\8\ As of 2020, China
was listed as Recalcitrant. In 2016, there were over 20,000 convicted
criminal alien Chinese nationals that the United States was not able to
remove.\9\ In 2021, DHS reported that ``approximately 40,800 PRC
nationals in the United States are subject to final orders of
removal.''\10\ However, in November 2023, the New York Times quoted an
anonymous Biden administration official as saying that ``Of the 1.3
million people in the United States with final orders to be deported,
about 100,000 are Chinese.''\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ DHS Strategic Action Plan to Counter the Threat Posed by the
People's Republic of China.
\6\ Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Annual Report, Fiscal Year
2023, Published December 29, 2023, https://www.ice.gov/doclib/eoy/
iceAnnualReportFY2023.pdf.
\7\ Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector
General, ``ICE Faces Barriers in Timely Repatriation of Detained
Aliens,'' OIG-19-28, March 11, 2019, https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/
default/files/assets/2019-03/OIG-19-28-Mar19.pdf.
\8\ Congressional Research Service, ``Immigration: `Recalcitrant'
Countries and the Use of Visa Sanctions to Encourage Cooperation with
Alien Removals,'' July 10, 2020, https://crsreports.congress.gov/
product/pdf/IF/IF11025.
\9\ Author's personal knowledge at the time.
\10\ DHS Strategic Action Plan to Counter the Threat Posed by the
People's Republic of China.
\11\ Eileen Sullivan, ``Growing Numbers of Chinese Migrants Are
Crossing the Southern Border,'' New York Times, November 24, 2023,
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/24/us/politics/china-migrants-us-
border.html.
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Therefore, by releasing Chinese at the border, the Biden
administration is granting them de facto immigrant status with no
verification of their identity and background. To restore order to the
border and close this dangerous loophole, the United States needs to
re-implement the Migrant Protection Protocols and Asylum Cooperative
Agreements with Mexico and Northern Triangle countries so that
inadmissible aliens, including Chinese asylum applicants, are not
released into the interior pending the decision in their cases. The
United States should also apply maximum pressure to stop Latin American
countries from facilitating Chinese to transit their countries on the
way to the U.S. border. For example, Ecuador allows visa-free travel
for Chinese nationals, Panama allows facilities to exist that cater
exclusively to Chinese migrants, and Mexico does little to impede their
progress through its territory to the U.S. border.
record number of chinese nationals illegally entering the u.s. by land
According to U.S. law, DHS is supposed to detain all inadmissible
aliens who enter the country illegally between ports of entry. Illegal
immigrants detained pending removal proceedings have a high chance of
being deported, while those released are likely to remain indefinitely,
according the multiple DHS reports.\12\ At various times in the past,
DHS has responded to surges in the number of illegal aliens encountered
at the border by releasing them on their own recognizance, having
placed them in removal proceedings under U.S. immigration law.\13\
Since January 2021, this tactic has become the strategic norm and has
reached epic proportions. President Biden has added to the mass release
policy by using the limited parole power in the Immigration and
Nationality Act at an unprecedented scale and not for intended
purposes.\14\
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\12\ Nadwa Mossaad, Sean Leong, Ryan Baugh, and Marc Rosenblum,
``Fiscal Year 2021 Enforcement Lifecycle Report,'' U.S. Department of
Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics, November 2022, p.
13, https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-12/2022_-
1114_plcy_enforcement_lifecycle_report_fy2021.pdf (accessed October 16,
2023).
\13\ Title 8 U.S. Code, Aliens and Nationality, https://
uscode.house.gov/browse/&edition=prelim (accessed October 16, 2023).
\14\ Texas et al v. Biden, Case 6:23-cv-00007, United States
District Court, Southern District of Texas, Victoria Division, Filed
January 24, 2023.
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The last month of the Trump administration, January 2021, saw just
17 Chinese encountered at the Southwest Border between ports of entry
(POEs). In January 2024, 3 years into the Biden administration, Border
Patrol encountered 3,700 Chinese--200 hundred times as many.
In fiscal year 2021, DHS had 23,471 total encounters with Chinese,
and only 342 of them between POEs.
In fiscal year 2022, DHS had 27,756 total encounters with Chinese,
1,987 of which were between POEs.
In fiscal year 2023, DHS had 52,700 total encounters with Chinese,
24,125 of which were between POEs.
In fiscal year 2024 as of March 31, the Department of Homeland
Security encountered 41,970 total inadmissible Chinese nationals at our
borders. Twenty-four thousand, two hundred ninety-six of these were
encounters by the Border Patrol between Ports of Entry (POEs), and
3,004 were encounters at POEs by Customs and Border Protection.\15\
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\15\ U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, ``Nationwide Encounters,'' https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/
stats/nationwide-encounters, (accessed May 10, 2024).
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On just 1 day in April 2024 (April 24) the Border Patrol
encountered 206 Chinese nationals crossing into just the San Diego
sector of the Southwest Border.\16\ San Diego sector has seen explosive
growth in Chinese illegally arriving by foot. In fiscal year 2021, the
Border Patrol had only 75 encounters with Chinese nationals all year in
San Diego sector. That rose to 942 in fiscal year 2022, 10,520 in
fiscal year 2023, and they are up to 23,890 in fiscal year 2024 so
far.\17\ DHS has even granted appointments to Chinese, supposedly
located in Mexico, under their CBP One application for them to apply
for parole after being allowed to fly into the United States or present
themselves at a Port of Entry. Between January 2023 and September 30,
2023, Chinese nationals made 36 appointments on CBP One, of which 32
were granted parole.\18\
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\16\ Adam Shaw, ``Border Patrol sector stops hundreds of Chinese
illegal immigrants in just 2 days as numbers soar,'' Fox News, May 3,
2024, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/border-patrol-sector-stops-
hundreds-chinese-illegal-immigrants-just-two-days-numbers-soar,
(accessed May 10, 2024).
\17\ CBP, Nationwide Encounters.
\18\ U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Homeland Security,
News Release, October 23, 2023, https://homeland.house.gov/2023/10/23/
new-documents-obtained-by-homeland-majority-detail-shocking-abuse-of-
cbp-one-app/.
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In March 2024, I visited the California border in San Diego,
Jacumba Hot Springs, Otay Mesa, and Imperial Beach. I spent a morning
watching 2 unmarked buses chartered by the Border Patrol dropping off
aliens at San Diego's Iris Avenue bus and tram stop. Single adult
illegal immigrants in San Diego are released at several spots after
minimal screening and assisted by NGO's, family, and friends to move
further into the United States. At Iris Avenue, I saw a row of Toyota
Priuses driven by Chinese men looking for compatriots to solicit. The
licensed cabdrivers I spoke to--who were legal immigrants from El
Salvador, Somalia, and Ecuador--told me the Chinese drivers were
operating illegal taxis.\19\ There were Chinese nationals, of
apparently recent arrival, selling cigarettes, internet connections,
and other services to their compatriots arriving off Border Patrol
buses.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Simon Hankinson, ``My Look Inside Biden's Illegal Immigrant
Catch-and-Release Craziness,'' The Daily Signal, April 08, 2024,
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/08/my-look-inside-bidens-illegal-
immigrant-catch-release-craziness-borderline/ (accessed May 10, 2024).
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The Border Patrol's San Diego sector is attractive to Chinese
illegal crossers for several reasons. One is that the U.S. city of 1.4
million people directly extends to the border, with the Mexican city of
Tijuana literally built up to the border wall (where it exists) in many
places. There is no desert like in Arizona, or river as in Texas, to
present even a small natural obstacle. In addition, San Diego's public
transit, the county's network of non-governmental organizations, and
the sanctuary policies of California all facilitate easy entry and
dispersal.\20\ Given the many gaps in the border wall, and daily
breaches of the wall by alien smugglers in Mexico, there is no real
impediment to the mass movement of people into the United States in
this sector. Furthermore, in the words of former Border Patrol chief
Rodney Scott, ``there's no real response from the Federal Government of
the United States to slow it down. There hasn't been since 2021.''\21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ Virginia Allen, ``6 Reasons Chinese Nationals Are Illegally
Crossing California's Southern Border,'' The Daily Signal, April 28,
2024, https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/28/6-reasons-chinese-
nationals-illegally-crossing-californias-southern-border/, (accessed
May 10, 2024).
\21\ Allen, Ibid.
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why chinese come illegally to the u.s. border
Push Factors: Economic and Political Drivers
A recent Wilson Center article by Joshua Peng attributes the
reasons Chinese leave China, often with the intent of remaining in
another country via an asylum claim, to ``fears of President Xi
Jinping's authoritarian rule and the experience of draconian zero-COVID
policies'' and ``skepticism of the Chinese economy and fears of
eventually being cast into poverty.''\22\ A change to the Chinese
constitution in 2018 allowed Xi Jinping a third Presidential term,
removed time limits on his staying in power, and strengthened his
control as China's leader.\23\ After 2020, China's zero-COVID policy
forced testing, vaccines, and lockdowns, enforced by surveillance state
and sometimes violence.\24\ However, whatever the individual
motivations for leaving, it should be noted that absent political
persecution by the government of the applicant himself, none of the
above reasons would qualify an applicant for asylum in the United
States.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ Joshua Peng, ``Through the Darien Gap: A New Path for Chinese
Asylum Seekers to the United States,'' The Wilson Center, March 20,
2024, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/through-darien-gap-new-path-
chinese-asylum-seekers-united-states#:?:text=Over%2015%2C500-
%20Chinese%20migrants%20were,40%20times%20that%20of%202021.
\23\ Chris Buckley and Steven Lee Myers, ``China's Legislature
Blesses Xi's Indefinite Rule. It Was 2,958 to 2,'' New York Times, Mach
11, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/11/world/asia/china-xi-
constitution-term-limits.html (accessed May 10, 2024).
\24\ Peng, Ibid.
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Most reports agree that the majority of Chinese entering the United
States illegally by land are economic migrants seeking employment.\25\
Like millions of other people from all over the world, Chinese
nationals use asylum claims with no basis or merit as a method to
enter, remain, and work in the United States.\26\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ Interview by Alexandra Hernandez with unnamed Chinese man in
Jacumba, CA, February 21, 2024, posted by Bill Melugin, on X (Twitter),
https://x.com/BillMelugin_/status/1760372298547343498.
\26\ Lora Ries, ``Congress must put an end to Biden's `come one,
come all' immigration fiasco,'' Miami Herald, September 7, 2022,
https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article265096264.html
(accessed May 10, 2024).
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pull factors: unprecedented ease to travel, enter, stay, work in the
united states
U.S. Policy Change From Deter, Detain, and Deport to Process, Parole,
and Punt
The Biden administration claims that today's mass immigration is
the result of unprecedented geopolitical and environmental
circumstances.\27\ Their solution is, first, to use foreign aid and
assistance programs to reduce the ``root causes'' of immigration in
Latin America and then, while waiting for results, to replace the
traditional border control model of deterrence, detention, and
deportation of illegal crossers and allowing them to apply for asylum
protection thereafter. The Biden policy is to ``significantly expand
lawful pathways for protection, and facilitate the safe, orderly, and
humane processing of migrants.''\28\ The result has been predictable:
The easier it appears to be to enter the United States and be allowed
to remain and work, the more people come. DHS has reported over 150,000
people at the border every month attempting to enter the United States
illegally since January 2021.\29\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ ``Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection,'' The
White House, June 10, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/
statements-releases/2022/06/10/los-angeles-declaration-on-migration-
and-protection/ (accessed October 16, 2023).
\28\ Department of Homeland Security, ``Fact Sheet: U.S. Government
Announces Sweeping New Actions to Manage Regional Migration,'' April
27, 2024, https://www.dhs.gov/news/2023/04/27/fact-sheet-us-government-
announces-sweeping-new-actions-manage-regional-migration.
\29\ U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, ``Nationwide Encounters,'' https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/
stats/nationwide-encounters, (accessed May 10, 2024).
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The Biden administration's ``root causes'' approach has not reduced
illegal immigration flows as allegedly intended. Neither has its
``Comprehensive Plan to Manage the Border After Title 42.''\30\ The
intention of the Rule was to expedite the removal of those who were
less likely to qualify for asylum and who had not taken advantage of
the administration's new parole programs using the CBP One application.
However, as was widely predicted from the beginning, the Rule's wide
exceptions, including for families and certain nationalities, have made
it nearly useless. Even with the new Rule's demonstrable failure to
reduce the flow of inadmissible aliens crossing the border, the
administration's default position remained to let in as many aliens as
could be processed and nominally put them into the backlogged asylum
system. In most cases, illegal border crossers are released without any
way to track them or ensure that they attended scheduled court
appearances.\31\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ ``Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration Announces New Border
Enforcement Actions,'' The White House, January 5, 2023, https://
www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/01/05/fact-
sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-new-border-enforcement-
actions/ (accessed October 16, 2023).
\31\ Simon Hankinson, `` `Alternatives to Detention' for Illegal
Aliens: Effective with Mandatory Tracking for Entire Process,''
Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3767, May 12, 2023, https://
www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-05/BG3767_0.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to this ``catch and release'' standard, the
administration has redirected tens of thousands of illegal aliens whom
the Border Patrol would have ``encountered''--that is, administratively
arrested--crossing between ports of entry by inventing and expanding
programs to allow inadmissible aliens to enter the United States on
immigration parole.\32\ They are paroled on the premise that they are
refugees fleeing persecution who will apply for asylum rather than
economic migrants. The administration has provided mass, class-wide
parole programs for nationals of Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua,
and Venezuela and additional ``family reunification'' parole for
beneficiaries of immediate relative immigrant visa petitions from
Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, or Honduras and their
immediate family members.\33\ Over 50,000 more otherwise-inadmissible
aliens are now being welcomed every month into the country at air and
land entry points by inspectors with the U.S. Customs and Border
Protection Office of Field Operations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\32\ U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services, ``Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans,
and Venezuelans,'' last reviewed/updated September 20, 2023, https://
www.uscis.gov/CHNV (accessed October 16, 2023).
\33\ U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services, ``Family Reunification Parole Processes,'' last
reviewed/updated October 3, 2023, https://www.uscis.gov/FRP (accessed
October 16, 2023).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The White House continues to maintain that mass release at the
border and invented ``lawful pathways'' using parole are necessary
``unless Congress comes together in a bipartisan way to address our
broken immigration and asylum system.''\34\ However, what they appear
to mean by ``broken'' is that the current laws do not admit the number
of people they want, and by ``address'' they seek a mass amnesty for
those living here illegally, which would inspire millions more to enter
illegally in the hope of benefiting in the future.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ Press release, ``Border Encounters Remain Low as Biden-Harris
Administration's Comprehensive Plan to Manage the Border After Title 42
in Effect,'' U.S. Department of Homeland Security, June 6, 2023,
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2023/06/06/border-encounters-remain-low-biden-
harris-administrations-comprehensive-plan-
manage#:?:text=Until%20and%20unless%20-
Congress%20comes,in%20migration%20at%20our%20border (accessed October
16, 2023).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rising Chinese Influence in Latin America
Rising Chinese wealth, expanding networks of professional
smugglers, and complicit Latin American governments have facilitated
Chinese travel to the United States land border. China has been
investing in development, commercial, transportation, military, and
space projects throughout Latin America. Since 2005, China loaned more
than $140 billion to Latin American countries including Argentina,
Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela. Eleven countries in Latin America--
Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador,
Panama, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela--have signed onto China's Belt and
Road Initiative (BRI), a world-wide transportation network financed and
often built by China.\35\ The Chinese government has close ties with
socialist and leftist governments across Latin America--in particular,
economic giant Brazil, close U.S. neighbor Cuba, and oil-rich
Venezuela.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ John Polga-Hecimovich, ``China's evolving economic footprint
in Latin America,'' Geopolitical Intelligence Services AG, November 22,
2022, https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/chinas-economic-power-grows-
in-latin-america/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Easier Travel to Latin America and the United States
Under the Biden administration, Chinese nationals, like people from
180 other countries, come in increasing numbers simply because they
can. World-wide awareness of our open border, spread by family,
friends, and alien-smuggling criminals using social media, is the real
``root cause'' of the mass rush to the border since January 2021,
according to journalists who have spoken with prospective illegal
immigrants to the United States from many countries along the Panama-
Mexico route.\36\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ Todd Bensman, Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest
Border Crisis in U.S. History (Nashville: Bombardier Books, 2023).
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Chinese do not need a visa to fly to Ecuador, which has become a
major entry point for them into Latin America. On May 17, Air China
will begin direct flights from Beijing to Havana, with a stopover in
Madrid, to increase tourism according to the official announcement.\37\
From Ecuador, many Chinese migrants headed for the United States cross
through Colombia, the Darien Gap, and through Central America to Mexico
and the U.S. border. According to Peng, ``over 15,500 Chinese migrants
were counted in Panama after traversing . . . the Darien Gap'' in the
first 9 months of 2023, which is 40 times the number that took this
route in 2021.\38\ U.S. visitors to the Darien Gap report camps and
infrastructure exclusively catering to Chinese illegal migrants. Author
Brett Weinstein described ``a kind of hostility'' from Chinese migrants
when he attempted to ask them about their journey, saying they ``seemed
interested in deliberately misleading us as to their origin and
purpose.''\39\ Voice of America interviews of Chinese who had crossed
the Gap indicated economic motives as paramount in their decision to
leave China and trek to the U.S. border.\40\ There are reports that
others pay extra to bypass the Darien Gap by taking sea transport from
Ecuador further north.\41\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\37\ ``Air China will start direct Beijing-Havana flights on May
17,'' Prensa Latina, April 12, 2024, https://www.plenglish.com/news/
2024/04/12/air-china-will-start-direct-beijing-havana-flights-on-may-
17/.
\38\ Peng. Ibid.
\39\ Neil Oliver, ``Darien Gap difficulty, Mass migration through
one of the most IMPENETRABLE jungles in the world,'' GB News, February
2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp6ZfoHqkCo.
\40\ Adrianna Zhang, ``For Some Chinese Migrants, Few Options in
Xi's China,'' VOA, February 29, 2024, https://www.voanews.com/a/for-
some-chinese-migrants-few-options-in-xi-s-china-/7508948.html.
\41\ Eric Szeto, ``In search for freedom, Chinese migrants
increasingly risk it all by braving the Darien Gap,'' CTV News, https:/
/www.ctvnews.ca/w5/in-search-for-freedom-chinese-migrants-increasingly-
risk-it-all-by-braving-the-darien-gap-1.6809429#:?:text=The%20boat%20-
ride%20- would%20allow,of%20robberies%20and%20'sexual%20assaults.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to Peng, ``Chinese migrants typically spend between
$5,000 and $7,000 for self-guided trips, and up to $35,000 for the aid
of smugglers, 3 times what Latin American migrants typically pay.''\42\
Migrants pay smugglers for package deals. Meanwhile, Chinese social
media informs them of the logistics, including how to give themselves
up to U.S. Border Patrol once they have entered the United States.\43\
According to the Asia Society, the social media app Douyin (the Chinese
version of TikTok, also owned by parent company ByteDance) recently
banned the word ``zouxian'' (``walk the line'') from search results.
That term, and others, is a euphemism for illegal migration out of
China including into the United States. According to analyst Lynette
Ong of the Center for Chinese Analysis, ``Douyin's censorship was
likely the result of pressure from Chinese authorities embarrassed by
the magnitude of the exodus'' of Chinese who use Douyin to guide them
on their journey to Latin America and north to the U.S. border.\44\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ Peng, Ibid.
\43\ Author's conversation with Michael Cunningham, Research
Fellow, The Heritage Foundation.
\44\ Lynette Ong, ``Douyin Censors Migrant Searches,'' Asia Society
Policy Institute, China 5 Newsletter, May 10, 2024.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chinese Immigration After 1965
It was difficult for Chinese to enter the United States until the
Immigration Act of 1965, which began the modern era of mass immigration
into the United States. The majority of immigrants to the United States
now come now from Latin America, Asia, and Africa rather than Europe as
in the previous 3 centuries. In 1993, some Chinese were prepared to pay
up to $30,000 each for passage by sea and even to be smuggled in
shipping containers.\45\ The flows from China have ebbed and flowed
over the years, corresponding to the risk-reward calculation of
spending thousands of dollars on alien smuggling services compared to
the chance of being allowed into the United States to work and live
indefinitely.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\45\ Morning Edition, ``Finding An Anchor For A Life Set Adrift By
A Shipwreck,'' National Public Radio, June 7, 2024, https://
www.npr.org/2013/06/07/189222117/finding-an-anchor-for-a-life-set-
adrift-by-a-shipwreck.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chinese nationals have been able to find black market, illegal
employment for generations in the U.S. informal service industries,
particularly in the bigger cities' ``Chinatowns.'' Today, there are
also opportunities in rural areas, where Chinese investors and criminal
syndicates are systematically buying land. In 2021, Chinese owners held
384,000 acres in the United States, according to the Department of
Agriculture, amounting to 1% of land held by foreigners.\46\ According
to a report by Brian Burack of the Heritage Foundation, ``national
security threats stemming from Chinese purchases of U.S. land and real
estate are growing.''\47\ Burack writes that ``the totality of Chinese-
owned real estate is unknown, and under current law, is unknowable,''
adding that Chinese-owned agricultural land has ``increased rapidly in
recent years'' and that Chinese ``were the top foreign buyers of U.S.
commercial real estate'' in 2020.\48\ Large holdings of land are owned
by shell companies and cutouts that can obscure the real holder's
Chinese origin.\49\ Chinese individuals and entities have also
purchased or attempted to buy land close to U.S. military installations
in several States.\50\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ Allen, Ibid.
\47\ Brian Burack, ``China's Land Grab: The Sale of U.S. Real
Estate to Foreign Adversaries Threatens National Security,'' The
Heritage Foundation, May 9, 2024, https://www.heritage.org/asia/report/
chinas-land-grab-the-sale-us-real-estate-foreign-adversaries-threatens-
national.
\48\ Burack, Ibid.
\49\ Burack, Ibid.
\50\ Mike Heuer, ``Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland, locations
raise concerns,'' UPI, February 8, 2024, https://www.upi.com/Top_News/
US/2024/02/08/foreign-investment-farmland- china/6631706895056/
#:?:text=For%20example%2C%20a%20Chinese%20company,Guard%20-
training%20facility%20in%20Grayling (accessed May 10, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indentured labor to pay off alien smuggling fees has been common in
Chinese, and other, illegal migration for decades. There have been
recent reports of marijuana farms in rural America run by Chinese
criminal groups, who appear to employ Chinese nationals with
questionable immigration status, including one from Maine in March
2024.\51\ While the stories of abuse or exploitation told by Chinese
laborers in these Chinese-owned farms, factories, and other businesses
may be true, they may also be convenient ways for the worker-
``victims'' to further their asylum claims or apply for visas reserved
for victims of crime.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\51\ Donovan Lynch, ``As police crack down on illegal marijuana
grows, Chinese workers present grim reality behind closed doors,''
NewsCenter Maine, March 19, 2924, https://www.newscentermaine.com/
article/news/crime/illegal-marijuana-grows-chinese-workers-maine-
court-documents-investigation/97-ae363572-3d17-479a-bc90-5ea509eaecfc
(accessed May 10, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While China was poor, emigration to the United States was largely a
one-way street. Today, China's enormous economic growth provides more
opportunities for the PRC to influence U.S. politics through its
diaspora. To cite one example, the National Review recently reported on
Chinese-American John Chan's ``constellation of nonprofit organizations
and businesses'' which, along with his connections with the Chinese
government and New York State politicians, he reportedly uses to
advocate for positions favored by the People's Republic of China.\52\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\52\ Jimmy Quinn, ``New Player in Chinese Communist Influence Body
Has Extensive NYC Political Ties,'' National Review, May 10, 2024,
https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/05/new-player-in-chinese-communist-
influence-body-has-extensive-nyc-political-ties/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
who are they? identifying and vetting chinese legal and illegal
immigrants
``Vetting'' in Consular Visa Operations
Twenty-five years ago on the visa line in New Delhi, I would
interview at least 150 visa applicants a day and enter my decision into
a computerized non-immigrant visa (NIV) system. With reference to the
Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), my job was to decide whether
each applicant qualified for a visa. After 9/11, the State Department
used to tell adjudicating officers that ``every visa decision is a
national security decision.'' If an applicant did not qualify under the
law, we did not issue a visa. The most common reason for denial was
under INA s.214(b), which in brief requires every alien to prove to the
consular officer that he is going to the United States for the purpose
stated, and that he has a home outside the United States to which he
intended to return. There are also many reasons a person can be
ineligible from getting a visa under the INA, mostly under s.212,
including criminal offences, public health concerns, and previous
immigration violations. This personal consular interview is the first
line of ``vetting'' for foreign visa applicants.
The second line of vetting is through automatic checks of U.S.
databases containing holdings from across government agencies. Names,
dates of birth, and other facts are run through the Consular Lookout
and Support System (CLASS) maintained by the State Department's Bureau
of Consular Affairs. This system pulls data from Federal agencies that
in turn have data from State and local law enforcement, such that if a
foreigner has a criminal or other adverse history in the United States,
they are likely to be flagged for further review before a visa is
issued. Visa applicants must also provide photographs and all 10
fingerprints (if available). These are confirmed by embassy or consular
staff and the interviewing consular officer and then run through facial
recognition and fingerprint databases to see if there are any matches.
Adverse results are addressed by the interviewing or adjudicating
consular officer before they make a decision.
It is quite common to find applicants with false names and dates of
birth, even with legitimately-issued foreign passports, because their
other identities can be compared to bio-data databases. Fingerprints
don't change, and facial recognition is always improving. Although visa
applicants do not have to supply criminal records clearances from their
national police agency, which is a requirement for immigrant visas,
they are required to attest on a signed form that they have no criminal
record and no other ineligibility. Embassies and consulates have local
and American staff trained in anti-fraud measures. Consular staff know
local languages, accents, customs, news, and other country-specific
factors that can help prevent applicants from lying successfully in
their visa applications. Larger embassies host various Federal
agencies, including elements of DHS and other Federal law enforcement,
who have local contacts with their counterparts through whom they can
investigate cases of concern.
Unfortunately, the Biden administration appears unwilling to
support the State Department's foreign efforts by investigating and
prosecuting visa fraud in national security cases. Even before the
Biden administration canceled the Justice Department's China initiative
in 2022, apparently on the grounds that it was racially biased,\53\ it
began dropping fraud charges \54\ against alleged Chinese military
personnel accused of falsifying visa applications.\55\ It appears that
the Justice Department's National Security Division has not prosecuted
any new China-related visa fraud cases since February, 2021, even
though multiple visa fraud cases begun by the Trump administration
resulted in convictions.\56\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\53\ U.S. Department of Justice, Remarks by Assistant Attorney
General Matthew Olsen on Countering Nation-State Threats, Wednesday,
February 23, 2022, https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/assistant-
attorney-general-matthew-olsen-delivers-remarks-countering-nation-
state-threats.
\54\ Jane Lee, ``U.S. dials back probe of Chinese scientists on
visa fraud charges,'' Reuters, July 23, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/
world/us/us-seeks-dismiss-charges-visa-fraud-cases-chinese-researchers-
2021-07-23/.
\55\ U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Press
Release, ``Researchers Charged with Visa Fraud After Lying About Their
Work for China's People's Liberation Army,'' Thursday, July 23, 2020,
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/researchers-charged-visa-fraud-after-
lying-about-their-work-china-s-people-s-liberation-army.
\56\ U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, Press
Release, ``Chinese Government Employee Convicted of Participating in
Conspiracy to Defraud the United States and Fraudulently Obtain U.S.
Visas,'' Wednesday, March 23, 2022, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/
chinese-government-employee-convicted-participating-conspiracy-defraud-
united-states-and.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Still, although vetting of foreign visa applicants is by no means
foolproof, it is multi-layered and frequently results in visa refusals
based on adverse information that would not have been discovered had
the person simply arrived illegally, with no identity documents, at the
U.S. border.
vetting by dhs at the border
After 2021, most ``national security decisions'' of who gets into
our country are no longer made by American officers. Under President
Biden's border policies, what was a privilege has become a right. The
United States has outsourced the decision on who gets in at the border
to foreign nationals based on who simply shows up in person, or who
applies to enter the United States and ask for parole using CBP One. We
still have a visa system overseas, but this expensive official ``front
door'' competes with a wide-open back door at the Southern Border,
where DHS releases most of them into the interior after minimal
processing. There are no fees, no forms, and no way to routinely verify
a given name, age, and identity. Worst of all, there are no criminal
background checks in the person's home country or anywhere they pass
through. DHS mostly takes an individual's given information on trust.
While the majority of those arriving illegally are economic migrants
who will claim asylum to be allowed to remain and work, ``There is a
realistic probability that some Chinese nationals illegally crossing
the U.S.-Mexico border have ties to Chinese intelligence, using U.S.
border vulnerabilities for espionage,'' according to private
intelligence analyst Grey Dynamics.\57\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\57\ Betselot Dejene, ``Chinese Espionage Threat at the US-Mexico
Border,'' Grey Dynamics, May 11, 2024, https://greydynamics.com/
chinese-espionage-threat-at-the-us-mexico-border/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In January 2024, the Daily Caller reported that the Biden
administration has ``drastically simplified the vetting process for
Chinese illegal immigrants'' started in April 2023, based on a source
at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).\58\ According to
information obtained by the Daily Caller, CBP agents including Border
Patrol were instructed to reduce the number of standard questions asked
of inadmissible Chinese from 40 to 5. This approach is in line with the
Biden administration's overall policy of processing in as many
inadmissible aliens as possible, prioritizing maximum flow over
vetting. A former Government official told the Daily Caller that
Chinese arrested at the border are well-coached on how to answer these
questions, so as to be released soonest. From my own experience with
visa interviews and investigating consular fraud in several countries,
I know that alien smugglers include training on how to answer interview
questions from American officials in their package deals. Such training
is designed to avoid further investigation into the inadmissible
alien's background, while maximizing chances for a successful, if
fraudulent, asylum claim.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\58\ Philip Lenczycki, ``Biden Admin Watered Down Vetting Process
For Chinese Illegal Immigrants, Email Shows,'' The Daily Caller,
January 2, 2024, https://dailycaller.com/2024/01/02/biden-admin-cbp-
chinese-illegal-migrants/?utm_medium=push&utm_source=daily_caller-
&utm_campaign=push.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like the ``Security and Background Information'' questions on the
DS-160 visa application,\59\ the questions asked by CBP interviewers of
inadmissible aliens at the border are intended to find out whether they
have a criminal record; any connections to the military, government, or
political parties; and other information useful to determine whether
they pose a security threat before they are released. Answering ``yes''
to any of the security questions would lead to further enquiry and
detention pending the results. As the email obtained by the Daily
Caller reads, ``If there is a Yes to any of the above [security
questions] they are then referred and transported to [redacted] for an
in-depth interview by Tactical Terrorism Response Team.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\59\ U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs, ``Online
Nonimmigrant Visa Application DS-160,'' p.68, https://travel.state.gov/
content/dam/visas/PDF-other/DS-160-Example- _11-19-2020.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
But whether 40 questions or 5, the process essentially relies on an
illegal alien at the border telling the truth for his criminal past,
membership in a totalitarian party, or terrorist affiliations to be
discoverable, absent U.S. records on that individual. CBP says their
``multi-layered border security efforts include various screening and
vetting processes that work to detect and prevent individuals who pose
national security or public safety risks from entering the United
States.''\60\ In fact, they have very limited means of verifying
identify documents, statements, and any other information proffered by
Chinese inadmissible aliens at the border before releasing them. China
is hardly helpful in this regard, unless they have their own reasons
for wanting a particular individual detained or returned to China.
China routinely ignores U.S. requests for verification of nationality
of even dangerous criminals. According to the State Department's
Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2022, ``corruption
remained rampant'' in China.\61\ The Department's 2023 Report removed
that phrase for some reason but did report that ``in general very few
details were made public regarding the process by which CCP and
government officials were investigated for corruption.''\62\ In
addition, according to the human rights NGO Safeguard Defenders,
China's ``criminal justice data continues to be culled from official
reports and the main database,'' their research indicating that more
than ``85,000 verdicts from criminal judgments spanning 2013 to 2020
[were] removed'' in the last year.\63\ China's reluctance to publish,
much less share, information about corrupt officials and criminals
makes it very unlikely that CBP's vetting, however ``multilayered,''
does much good at discovering the true backgrounds of inadmissible
aliens before they are released.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\60\ Philip Lenczycki, Daily Caller.
\61\ U.S. Department of State, 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices, ``China (Includes Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet),'' Section 4,
https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-rights-
practices/china/.
\62\ U.S. Department of State, 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices, ``China (Includes Hong Kong, Macau, and Tibet),'' Section 4,
https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-country-reports-on-human-rights-
practices/china/.
\63\ Safeguard Defenders, ``Prosecutions abandoned, conviction rate
record high, and more on China's judiciary 2022,'' https://
safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/prosecutions-abandoned-conviction-rate-
record-high-and-more-china-s-judiciary-2022, (accessed May 13, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller admitted the obvious in
testimony before the House Appropriations Committee on May 4 that DHS
releases people without confirming ID.\64\ When asked by Rep. Andy
Harris (R-MD) ``So, we're not admitting people into the interior who
don't have identification?'' Miller responded that ``we could release
somebody with a notice to appear (NTA).'' A Notice to Appear is a
letter given to an alien by the Border Patrol or other agents of the
DHS informing the subject that under section 212(a)(6)(A)(i) of the
Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) ``you are an alien present in the
United States without being admitted or paroled, or who arrived at any
time or place other than as designated by the Attorney General,'' and
ordering the subject to appear before an immigration judge \65\ at a
specified time and place.\66\ This hearing begins immigration
proceedings to remove them from the United States for being here
illegally. The initial hearing might be many months, or even years, in
the future.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\64\ Heritage Foundation, Twitter, https://x.com/Heritage/status/
1786828427573477815, May 4, 2024.
\65\ Immigration judges are administrative judges working for the
Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review, see
https://www.justice.gov/eoir.
\66\ Simon Hankinson, ``My Look Inside Biden's Illegal Immigrant
Catch-and-Release Craziness,'' The Daily Signal, April 08, 2024,
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/08/my-look-inside-bidens-illegal-
immigrant-catch-release-craziness-borderline/ (accessed May 10, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In practice, then, most aliens caught illegally crossing the U.S.
border and released with a Notice to Appear are released for an
indefinite time, to go where they want in the country, with no way for
ICE to know their true location or easily find them if needed. In the
mean time, only a small minority of released aliens are under any kind
of monitoring under Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Alternatives
to Detention (ATD) program.\67\ There are more than 6 million aliens on
ICE's Non-Detained Docket (NDD), meaning aliens in immigration
proceedings such as deportation or asylum claims. As of April 20, 2024,
ICE was monitoring only 184,318 of this population using ATD.\68\ As of
April 2023, only 2% of the aliens monitored under ATD were tracked with
GPS monitors worn by the alien, with more than 91% tracked using
methods that required the alien to actively participate by using a
smart phone facial recognition application or calling a dedicated phone
number.\69\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\67\ Simon Hankinson, `` `Alternatives to Detention' for Illegal
Aliens: Effective with Mandatory Tracking for Entire Process,''
Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3767, May 12, 2023, https://
www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2023-05/BG3767_0.pdf.
\68\ TRAC Immigration, ``Immigration Detention Quick Facts, https:/
/trac.syr.edu/immigration/quickfacts/, (accessed May 10, 2024).
\69\ Hankinson, ``Alternatives to Detention''.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I visited San Diego in March 2024, I witnessed the release of
dozens of aliens from at least 15 countries. From my observations, GPS
tracking devices, in the form of anklets, were being worn by people
from Eastern Europe and Central Asia (Chechnya, Russia, Kazakhstan) but
not Africa, China, India, or Latin America. I have also personally
inspected several NTAs given to aliens released at the border in
Arizona, California, and Texas. On these, the locations for the alien's
scheduled immigration hearing may be nowhere near the alien's intended
destination in the United States. For example, one Indian released in
San Diego in March 2024 told me he was going to live with his uncle in
Indiana, but he had a court date in May 2024 in Van Nuys, California,
which is 2,085 miles away. Without a drivers' license or any
identification documents, it is difficult to see how he and other
aliens will be able to make the journey of hundreds of miles to attend
all of the hearings in their removal proceedings.
In March 2023, I visited a gap in the unfinished border wall near
the Morelos Dam in Yuma. President Biden ordered all work on the wall
to stop shortly after taking office. The Morelos Gap is one of many
places in Arizona where the border is, for most intents and purposes,
wide open. People of unknown identity from anywhere in the world can
simply walk up and come in. Under Secretary of Homeland Security
Mayorkas, the illegal arrivals are met by the Border Patrol or whatever
DHS elements are available and channeled into a system that is designed
to get them into the interior of the United States as fast as possible.
Diverting DHS staff, including Border Patrol, from regular duty to
providing administrative and social services leaves the border less
guarded than usual, allowing even more illegal drugs, people, and goods
into the country.
At 3 o'clock a.m., I witnessed more than 100 people walking or
running through the Gap to join a long line to be ``processed.'' I
spoke to or saw people from Cameroon, China, Cuba, the Dominican
Republic, Ecuador, Georgia, India, and Russia. When asked, the people
in line told me they were here to look for work and opportunity. They
get in with no application, no fee, no criminal background check, and
none of the other inconveniences of having to qualify for a visa as our
law requires before asking to be admitted into the United States.
conclusion
Despite what the Biden administration wishes the American public to
believe, there is no serious ``vetting'' of populations released at the
U.S. border under Title 8 removal proceedings, nor of those allowed in
under parole programs, much less the ``gotaways'' who enter without
inspection. Unless a foreign national released or paroled has an
existing record from previous time spent in the United States or a
foreign record held by U.S. agencies for some other reason, DHS has no
routine way of checking anyone's background for criminal records,
terrorist affiliation, membership in a hostile foreign government
agency, or other concern. DHS also has no way to confirm the name, date
of birth, or any other information proffered by an applicant unless
that person has been encountered by a U.S. law enforcement agency
before. With up to 10 million people released or allowed to illegally
enter the United States since January 2021, there is a considerable
potential risk of espionage, crime, or other hostile action from some
individuals in this population.
The solution to the problem of growing illegal immigration is the
same from the Biden administration on the U.S. political Left as it is
for the Libertarians at the other extreme--eliminate illegal
immigration by re-defining it as legal through so-called ``lawful
pathways'' like parole; expanding Temporary Protected Status,
Prosecutorial Discretion, Deferred Enforcement, and other tricks to
avoid carrying out the intent of U.S. immigration law; releasing
illegal aliens into interminable, theoretical ``removal'' proceedings
under Title 8; and increasing the overall number of temporary and
permanent visas for workers and students. But even were it politically
acceptable to do, no amount of U.S. expansion would ever meet the
demand given the population, economy, and politics of China.
Whatever the upper limits on overall numbers, the United States
will at some point need to police its borders and remove those who are
ineligible to enter or remain here under the law. Most importantly,
those who are deliberately paroled or released must be identified, and
their backgrounds vetted, more seriously than at present. The nationals
of all countries present risks of criminal pasts and thus predictable
rates of recidivism. But nationals of countries hostile to U.S.
interests like China, Iran, Russia, and others, require extra scrutiny.
Chairman Bishop. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Singleton for 5 minutes for
his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF CRAIG SINGLETON, SENIOR FELLOW, FOUNDATION FOR
DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES
Mr. Singleton. Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member Ivey, and
distinguished Members of this committee, thanks for the
opportunity to testify about how the Chinese Communist Party
stands to exploit America's border crisis to further its
strategic interests and undermine U.S. national security. All
told, the dramatic increase in Chinese nationals seeking to
illegally enter the United States has reached unprecedented
levels.
Today's surge is not simply a matter of immigration though.
It is a multifaceted menace that mires our border management
systems and magnifies major national security risks. The
drivers of today's surge are complex. Economic instability and
political repression within China have propelled many Chinese
to seek better lives abroad, yet this migration is also
facilitated by sophisticated Chinese smuggling networks,
readily accessible through Chinese social media platforms like
WeChat and Douyin, China's version of TikTok.
These and other platforms provide prospective migrants with
detailed step-by-step guidance about how to enter our country
illegally, as well as facilitate direct connections with human
traffickers. Given that context, the security implications of
today's border surge are profound and worthy of further
inquiry.
For starters, the influx provides cover for Chinese
intelligence operatives or those acting on their behalf to
potentially infiltrate our borders. These operatives benefit
from newfound operational flexibility insomuch as instability
at the border allows them to evade traditional screening
procedures at other American ports of entry.
Furthermore, their diversification of tradecraft, using
everything from false documentation to exploiting
vulnerabilities in our border screening protocols, equips these
individuals with a varied arsenal designed to overwhelm our
defenses.
Adding to these concerns are China's national security
laws, including its 2017 national intelligence law and
recently-revised counterespionage law which require all Chinese
citizens and organizations to support state intelligence
activities. Coupled with China's well-documented history of
conducting extraterritorial operations in the United States and
elsewhere, these Chinese laws pose a significant threat,
turning innocent individuals into tools of espionage under
immense pressure from China's government.
Amidst this orchestrated chaos Chinese transnational
criminal organizations are also ruthlessly exploiting our
border vulnerabilities, fueling the fentanyl crisis that claims
thousands of American lives each year, showcasing a sinister
blend of state-sponsored subterfuge and underworld criminality.
Beyond the clear security risks, China is also skillfully
exploiting today's chaos to depict the United States as a
faltering democracy incapable of securing its borders. This
narrative, projected globally, not only diminishes our
international standing but also bolsters China's robust efforts
to undermine Western democratic values. All the while, China's
government remains intent on obscuring the reality that its own
citizens are fleeing China in search of freedom and opportunity
elsewhere.
In response to these threats we must not only do more to
secure our borders, but also strengthen our diplomatic ties and
enhance our technological capabilities. These efforts should be
complemented by targeted legislative actions that provide the
necessary tools and resources to combat these threats
effectively.
A coordinated response must include everything from
enhancing our border security infrastructure, improving
interagency collaboration, and boosting our intelligence
capabilities to preempt and dismantle the networks facilitating
these illegal migration flows. Washington must also intensify
its public diplomacy and counterpropaganda efforts to correct
Beijing's misleading narratives.
Such work is particularly important in light of a recent
speech Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping delivered to
party elites in which he remarked, ``The most important
characteristic of the world is in a word chaos, and this trend
appears likely to continue.'' In that seems speech Xi Jinping
noted, ``The times and trends are on our side.''
As we consider these and other measures let us remember
that the stakes are exceptionally high. The integrity of our
borders, the safety of our citizens, including Asian Americans
and Chinese Americans, and the stability of our global standing
are all intertwined with how we handle this growing crisis.
I look forward to working together in developing bipartisan
solutions that not only address the current challenges we face
but also reinforce our national resilience against all forms of
geopolitical manipulation and repression. On behalf of the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies, I thank you again for
inviting me to testify today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Singleton follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Singleton.
I now recognize Dr. Oyen for 5 minutes for an opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF MEREDITH OYEN, PH.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR,
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COUNTY
Ms. Oyen. Thank you, Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member Ivey,
and the Members of the subcommittee for the invitation to share
some historical context to the current increased levels of
Chinese immigration. My name is Meredith Oyen, I am an
associate professor of history at the University of Maryland,
Baltimore County, as well as the director of the Asian Studies
program there.
My research centers on the role that migrants play in the
relationship between the United States and China with
particular focus on the period since the founding of the
People's Republic in 1949. Recent Chinese history does provide
some explanations for the demographics in increased numbers of
Chinese migrants on the Southern Border.
Motivations for Chinese migrants crossing the Southern
Border include the slowing Chinese economy and tightening
political control under President Xi Jinping. The pandemic and
China's lengthy zero-COVID policy had important effects on the
Chinese national economy that led to slower growth and
increased discontent.
Migrants who have talked and been interviewed at the border
have cited the difficulty finding jobs and the impact of the
pandemic on small business. Migrants also cite the tightening
political control by President Xi Jinping that has led to
political repression, police visits after making statements
critical of the CCP or Chinese government, and a lack of
freedom as reasons for leaving China.
Specifically in the last decade, increasing persecution of
Chinese Christians and Muslims, along with limitations on the
exercise of their faith, has led some Chinese to leave the
country.
The crackdowns against protests in Hong Kong and the new
national security law implemented in 2020 has also led to the
flight of former Hong Kong residents.
The end of the zero-COVID policy in December 2022 permitted
more Chinese nationals to travel abroad than had been able to
since the beginning of the pandemic. Modern information sharing
through social media and on-line platforms has provided
information about crossing the U.S. Southern Border.
As the number of people who cross successfully into the
United States increase and they share their experiences, more
individuals looking for a viable path follow in their
footsteps.
Recent reports have highlighted the demographics of the
Chinese migrants. I wanted to add that before 1965 migration to
the United States was dominated by men traveling alone. This
was a result of the Page Act of 1875 which curtailed the
migration of women and cultural traditions in China that made
the international migration a risk only undertaken by men.
More recently, unauthorized Chinese migration through
container shipping, such as the Golden Venture incident that
made headlines in the 1990's, was also dominated by men
traveling alone. Like their predecessors, these men were not
necessarily single, but they were traveling solo hoping to pave
the way for families that followed.
Chinese immigrants, especially unauthorized immigrants,
have long fallen under suspicion of having dangerous motives or
being potential spies for a hostile foreign power. The Chinese
became the first and only nation to be singled out in U.S.
immigration law with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.
The anti-Chinese movement that precipitated the act cited
Chinese migration as a unique threat to the United States.
These fears led to extreme violence against Chinese immigrants,
including mob violence and the burning of Chinatowns.
After 1949, Chinese nationals in the United States and visa
applicants in Hong Kong faced suspicion and harassment from
U.S. authorities concerned about the national security risk
they posed. U.S. Counsel Everett Drumright warned that the
history of unauthorized entry and particularly the history of
lying about identities and lying about their background
information meant the entire population was rife for
opportunities for spying for the newly Communist government.
The search for spies among Chinese immigrants and the
Chinese American community had a chilling effect, and the
community in the United States had and faced increased
harassment and discrimination with no real evidence of spying
being found.
During the 1990's, Taiwanese-American scientist Wen Ho Lee
was arrested and held for over a year over espionage charges
that never had enough clear evidence of a crime to bring
charges against him. During the COVID pandemic there were many
documented instances of suspicion, harassment, and violence
against Chinese Americans as their race and ethnicity became
associated with the source of the pandemic that caused such
significant economic and personal harm.
Historically, there have been many examples of a impact of
suspicion, broad suspicion targeted specifically at Chinese
Americans that have had detrimental effects for the community
that is otherwise a very productive and useful community in the
United States. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Oyen follows:]
Prepared Statement of Meredith Oyen
Thursday, May 14, 2024, 2 o'clock PM ET
Thank you to the subcommittee for the invitation to share my
knowledge of this situation. My name is Meredith Oyen. I am an
associate professor of history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore
County. At UMBC, I am also the director of the Asian Studies Program.
My research centers on the role that migrants play in the relationship
between the United States and China, with particular focus on the
period since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
Today I am happy to be here to offer some historical context for the
issue of Chinese nationals crossing into the United States on the
Southern Border, a topic I have recently written about for the on-line
publication The Conversation.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``Chinese Migration to US is Nothing New--But the Reasons for
Recent Surge at Southern Border Are,'' The Conversation (March 11,
2024), https://theconversation.com/chinese-migration-to-us-is-nothing-
new-but-the-reasons-for-recent-surge-at-southern-border-are-223530.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As with many other nationalities, there is a long history of
unauthorized Chinese migrants coming to the United States. What has
drawn significant attention recently is the extent to which this
migration is coming over the Southern Border, and coming via a route
that begins in South America and continues through the Darien Gap. This
route for entry into the United States is dangerous for the migrants
undertaking it. But in 2023 there was a marked increase in the numbers
of Chinese nationals coming this way. In this statement, I hope to
address some of the reasons for this increase, as well as offer some
context for it in the larger patterns of Chinese migration.
According to Pew Research, as of 2021 there were approximately
375,000 unauthorized Chinese immigrants in the United States.\2\ That
is a small percentage of the more than 5 million ethnic Chinese who
reside in the United States. The most common paths for unauthorized
Chinese immigrants to enter the United States in recent decades has
been by overstaying a lawful tourist, business, or student visa. Visa
approval rates for Chinese nationals applying to visit the United
States temporarily have been high in recent decades.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Jeffrey S. Passel and Jens Manuel Korgstad, ``What we know
about unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S.,'' Pew Research Center
(Nov. 16, 2023), https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/16/
what-we-know-about-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/
#:?:text=The%20largest%20increases%20were%20from,India%20(725%2C000).
\3\ In fiscal year 2023 a total of 417,008 Nonimmigrant Visas were
issued to nationals from China. In the same year, the B visa refusal
rate was at 26.62 percent, down from fiscal year 2022 and the fiscal
year 2021 spike of 79.09 percent. That said, the current refusal rate
is much higher than it was a decade prior, when it was 8.5 percent in
fiscal year 2023. See Visa Waiver Program Refusal Data at U.S.
Department of State--Bureau of Consular Affairs, https://
travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics/
nonimmigrant-visa-statistics/nonimmigrant-b-visa-adjusted-refusal-
rates-by-nationality.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For some migrants, however, the wait for a visa can be long, or the
outcome uncertain. In these cases, there is a clear upward trend of
Chinese nationals following many other nationalities in making use of
the established routes through the Americas to reach the Southern
Border of the United States.
Based on recent media reports, motivations for Chinese migrants
crossing the Southern Border include the slowing Chinese economy and
tightening political control under President Xi Jinping. The pandemic
and China's lengthy ``Zero-Covid'' policy had important effects on the
Chinese national economy that has led to slower growth and
increased.\4\ Migrants who have talked to reporters at the border have
cited the difficulty finding jobs and the impact of the pandemic on
small businesses.\5\ The tightening political control by President Xi
Jinping is visible both through the unprecedented third term for Xi as
Party Secretary that was decided in the Twentieth Party Congress in
October 2022 as well as the recent sessions of the National People's
Congress.\6\ Migrants often cite political repression, police visits
after making critical statements of the CCP or Chinese government, and
a lack of freedom as reasons for leaving China.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Elaine Kurtenbach and Zen Soo, ``China's Economy is forecast to
slow sharply in 2024, the World Bank says, calling recovery `fragile,'
'' AP (Dec. 14, 2023), https://apnews.com/article/china-economy-
property-adb-791934f7f9b83de455e8f8aa7178b628; Haizheng Li and
Xiangyuan Li, ``The Covid-19 Pandemic's Impact on the Chinese
Economy,'' China Currents 22.1 (2023), https://www.chinacenter.net/
2023/china-currents/22-1/the-covid-19-pandemics-impact-on-the-chinese-
economy/#:?:text=The%20unprecedented%20pandemic%20hindered%20consumer,-
dropped%20into%20the%203%25%20range.
\5\ Sharyn Alfonsi, ``Chinese Migrants are the Fastest Growing
Group Crossing from Mexico into U.S. at Southern Border,'' CBS News
(Feb. 4, 2024), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-migrants-fastest-
growing-group-us-mexico-border-60-minutes-transcript/.
\6\ Simone McCarthy, `` `Two Sessions': China scraps a decades-long
political tradition as Xi tightens control amid economic woes,'' CNN
(Mar. 4, 2024), https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/04/china/china-two-
sessions-xi-jinping-economic-challenges-intl-hnk/index.html.
\7\ Elieen Sullivan, ``Growing Numbers of Chinese Migrants Are
Crossing the Southern Border,'' New York Times (Nov. 23, 2023), https:/
/www.nytimes.com/2023/11/24/us/politics/china-migrants-us-border.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The trip to the United States via the Southern Border is expensive
for Chinese migrants. They must pay for air travel, often routing
through countries like Thailand, Turkey, and Ecuador that do not
require Chinese nationals to obtain visas prior to arrival.\8\ The trip
often also involves paying local cartels or people smugglers known as
``snakeheads'' to arrange for safe passage through the Darien Gap and/
or to an entry point on the Southern U.S. Border.\9\ As a result, many
of the migrants apprehended in the last year have come from China's
expansive middle class.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ ``Which Countries can Chinese passport holders visit without a
Visa?'' Reuters (Jan. 29, 2024), https://www.reuters.com/world/china/
which-countries-can-chinese-passport-holders-visit-without-visa-2024-
01-29/.
\9\ Maryann Martinez, ``Chinese `Snakehead' Gangs Are Working With
the Cartel to Bring Migrants into the U.S.--As Others Walk in Legally
with Help of CBP One App,'' The Daily Mail (Feb. 24, 2024), https://
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/us-border-crisis/article-13141787/chinese-
migrants-snakeheads-gangs-cartel-flights-border.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Though Chinese migrants have long come to the United States, the
growth in numbers on the Southern Border particularly is unusual, and
the timing has raised questions about the reasons for the sudden
increase. There are several reasonable explanations for why the numbers
might have increased when they did. The first is the end of the Zero-
Covid policy in 2022, which permitted more Chinese nationals to travel
abroad than had been able to since the beginning of the pandemic. On-
line discussions have referred to ``runxue'' or ``run philosophy'' as a
way of talking about emigrating from China after harsh lockdowns in
2022.\10\ The decision to undertake this route is also a product of
modern information sharing through social media and on-line platforms.
Many migrants who felt an urgency to leave China cited videos on the
Chinese version of TikTok called Douyin, or on TikTok itself, as well
as other social media outlets, as having provided the information they
needed to undertake the journey.\11\ As the number of people who cross
successfully into the United States increases and they share their
experiences, more individuals looking for a viable path follow in their
footsteps.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Vincent Ni, `` `Run Philosophy': The Chinese Citizens Seeking
to Leave Amid Covid Uncertainty,'' The Guardian (Jul. 20, 2022),
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/20/run-philosophy-the-
chinese-citizens-seeking-to-leave-amid-covid-uncertainty.
\11\ Echo Wang and Mica Rosenberg, ``Migrants Find Tips on Chinese
Version of TikTok for long trek to U.S.-Mexico Border,'' Reuters (Apr.
28, 2023), https://www.reuters.com/world/migrants-find-tips-chinese-
version-tiktok-long-trek-us-mexico-border-2023-04-28/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A further motivation comes from the fact that Chinese nationals who
enter the United States and apply for asylum have also been more
successful than many other nationalities, given the valid concerns they
express about political repression or the lack of freedom to practice
Christianity in China.\12\ The lack of cooperation between the United
States and China on effecting deportations--something that was endemic
to the relationship in the 1950's through 1970's and has ebbed and
flowed in the years since--has ensured that even those not granted the
right to remain in the United States would not be able to be returned
to China. That situation is starting to change, and as deportations
increase, they might begin to affect the numbers of people
arriving.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Anugrah Kumar, ``China `Escalated persecution' against
Christian Churches in 2022, watchdog warns,'' The Christian Post (Feb.
20, 2023), https://www.christianpost.com/news/china-escalated-
persecution-against-christian-churches-in-2022.html.
\13\ Didi Tang, ``China and U.S. Resume Cooperation on Deportation
as Chinese Immigrants Rush in from Southern Border,'' AP News (May 9,
2024), https://apnews.com/article/china-immigration-border-deportation-
mayorkas-514f42ee56e80fe7eb7f9fcc71c4d55c.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recent reports have highlighted the demographics of the Chinese
migrants. Most of the unauthorized migrants crossing the Southern
Border have been single adults traveling alone, and although public
statistics do not account for gender, many who have been interviewed
have been men. This is one area in which knowledge of history and
culture can provide some reassurance. Before 1965, migration to the
United States was dominated by men traveling alone. Very often they
have not been single men, but men with families who travel first,
undertaking the greater dangers of the trip with the hope of bringing
family members to join them once established. This pattern was
established in the earliest days of Chinese migration to the United
States beginning in the 1850's:
``Chinese American communities were predominately made up of men--more
than half of them married--during the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries . . . Chinese women did immigrate to the United
States, but their numbers were small. During the nineteenth century,
the traditional Chinese patriarchal family system discouraged and even
forbade `decent' women from traveling abroad. The harsh living
conditions in California, high levels of anti-Chinese violence,
expensive transpacific transportation, and the lack of available jobs
for women were also factors that discouraged Chinese women from
immigrating.''\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Erika Lee, The Making of Asian America: A History (Simon &
Schuster, 2015), 67.
Since the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act did away with
National Origins quotas and gave preference to family reunification and
skill-based visas, legal migration from China has skewed female, with
the result of the overall demographics of Chinese immigrants in the
United States trending majority female.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Jan Ryan, ``Chinese Women as Transnational Migrants: Gender
and Class in Global Migration Narratives,'' International Migration
40.2 (2002): 1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, just as in the earliest periods of migration, dangerous
routes for unauthorized migrants are dominated by men. In the 1990's
there were many concerns about unauthorized Chinese migrants arriving
in the United States after being smuggled into U.S. ports via shipping
containers on cargo ships. In 1993, the cargo ship The Golden Venture
ran aground outside the Port of New York, and 286 undocumented migrants
from China's Fujian Province who had been aboard were discovered, some
swimming for their lives for the U.S. shore. The survivors numbered 262
men and 24 women.\16\ Overwhelmingly, the migrants seeking refuge in
the United States after undertaking an arduous voyage to get there were
men traveling alone. It would not be surprising that Chinese migrants
undergoing the route through the Darien Gap to the United States would
be majority male, if in fact they are.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Golden Venture: A Documentary About the U.S. Immigration
Crisis, (2015), https://www.goldenventuremovie.com/facts.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
History also demonstrates that there is precedent to fearing
Chinese migrants. The Chinese became the first and only nation to be
singled out in U.S. immigration law with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion
Act, which banned the migration of Chinese laborers to the United
States. The Exclusion Act was extended several times and made
``permanent'' until its ultimate repeal in 1943 in recognition of
Chinese cooperation as an ally in World War Two. The Anti-Chinese
Movement that precipitated the act cited Chinese migration as a unique
threat to the United States through both the entry of a ``degraded and
inferior race'' incompatible and unassimilable with the existing white
and Western European population and the ``economic danger'' of migrants
who worked hard and fast for lower wages than could sustain a Euro-
American man.\17\ These fears led to extreme violence against Chinese
immigrants, including mob violence and the burning of Chinatowns before
the passage of the first of the acts that collectively became the
Chinese Exclusion Acts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ Lee, 89.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Those acts in turn resulted in rising levels of unauthorized
Chinese migration, as migrants sought ways around the discriminatory
measures. During the decades of Exclusion, a black market of Chinese-
American identities emerged that allowed individuals to circumvent
immigration laws. Additionally, Chinese migrants during this period
sometimes crossed the southern U.S. border to enter the United
States.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Erika Lee, ``Enforcing the Borders: Chinese Exclusion along
the U.S. Borders with Canada and Mexico, 1882-1924,'' Journal of
American History 89.1 (June 2002): 54-86.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
After the People's Republic of China was established in 1949,
direct migration between the Chinese mainland and the United States was
severely curtailed until the reopening of relations in the 1970's.
During that period, though, Chinese nationals in the United States
faced suspicion and harassment from U.S. authorities concerned about
the national security risk they posed. Whereas Eastern European
defectors were often assumed to be freedom-seeking, Chinese nationals
with families still in China behind the ``bamboo curtain'' came under
intense scrutiny. The history of unauthorized migration and forged
documentation during the Exclusion Era created the impetus for FBI
raids on Chinatown organizations, arrests, and harassment of Chinese
migrants who did not support Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China
regime. Sending remittances home to family was criminalized under the
Trading with the Enemy Act, and Chinese scholars and scientists in the
United States when the Korean War broke out came under suspicion as
potential spies.\19\ Most famously, Chinese scientist Qian Xuesen was
harassed enough to decide to return to China, despite earlier plans to
remain permanently in the United States, and once returned he became an
important public figure in support of Chinese leader Mao Zedong and in
the development of the Silkworm missile.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Detailed in my book, The Diplomacy of Migration: Transnational
Lives and the Making of U.S.-China Relations in the Cold War (Cornell
University Press, 2015).
\20\ Kavita Puri, ``Qian Xuesen: The Man the US Deported--Who Then
Helped China into Space,'' BBC (Oct. 26, 2020), https://www.bbc.com/
news/stories-54695598.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even after normalization of relations and the reopening of regular
paths of immigration, Chinese migrants have been repeatedly brought
under suspicion of threatening national security and economic strength
for little reason other than their ethnicity. In 1982, Chinese
immigrant Vincent Chin was murdered in Detroit by 2 unemployed auto
workers after getting into an altercation at a bar. The men who
attacked him were heard to invoke fears of Japanese economic success to
the detriment of the American worker.\21\ During the 1990's, Taiwanese
American scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested and held for over a year
over espionage charges that never had enough clear evidence to try,
much less convict him.\22\ During the Covid Pandemic, there were many
documented instances of suspicion, harassment, and violence against
Chinese Americans, as their race and ethnicity became associated with
the source of the pandemic that caused such significant economic and
personal harm.\23\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Harmeet Kaur, ``Vincent China was beaten to death 40 years
ago. His case is still relevant today,'' CNN (Jun. 23, 2022), https://
www.cnn.com/2022/06/23/us/vincent-chin-death-40-anniversary-cec/
index.html.
\22\ ``The Wen Ho Lee Case,'' Science 290.5500 (Dec. 22, 2000),
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.290.5500.2224b.
\23\ Sungil Han, Jordan R. Riddell, and Alex R. Piquero, ``Anti-
Asian Hate Crimes Spike During the Early Stages of the COVID-19
Pandemic,'' Journal of Interpersonal Violence 38.3-4 (Feb 2023), 3513-
3533.
Chairman Bishop. Thank you, Dr. Oyen.
I will now recognize Mr. Bensman for 5 minutes for his
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF TODD BENSMAN, NATIONAL SECURITY FELLOW, CENTER FOR
IMMIGRATION STUDIES
Mr. Bensman. Hi. Thank you for the privilege of having me
here today.
As I speak with you at this minute, Chinese nationals are
illegally crossing our Southwest Border in historic numbers and
preparing for their second crime, asylum fraud. They disfigure
and toss their passports like this one because the stamps
inside prove their holders passed through safe countries that
would have granted protection. That would disqualify them for
U.S. asylum.
Likewise, they discard Mexican residency cards like these
all over the U.S. side and the Mexican side which the Mexicans
require for them to move north because they show that Mexico
already granted them protection, which is another disqualifier
for asylum.
A record-smashing 50,000 Chinese nationals have crossed the
Southern Border since Biden entered office and stood up
policies that mainline them into interior America within 48
hours. The Chinese people responded predictably to this
unprecedented invitation.
At current escalating rates, their numbers should hit
100,000 by 2024's end. All of China knows they will be freed on
personal recognizance for years and likely remain permanently.
This administration tolerates mass illegal entry and asylum
fraud, but we are here today because the administration seems
equally accommodating to a direct national security threat this
human flow poses. That would be China's relentless economic and
political espionage campaigns, thievery of cutting-edge defense
technologies, and dissident suppression operations against our
citizens and legal residents.
To be sure, most of those 50,000 Chinese nationals are
merely coming to work and enjoy America's famed lifestyle, but
there can be little doubt that Beijing's spy masters also
noticed right away when a welcome wagon greeted the first of
its 50,000 citizens that America's new President had just
opened a new superhighway over the U.S. Southwest Border,
tailor-built to carry intelligence operatives.
U.S. counterintelligence agencies must assume Beijing is
already injecting agents into this flow. Recent spy
prosecutions in the U.S. and public intelligence community
assessments tell us this threat is not speculative. The
prosecutions revealed young 20-something agents got in by
exploiting U.S. student and cultural exchange visas.
They heisted our secrets from inside and elite U.S.
universities, research institutes, and corporations. It follows
that the prosecutions put heat on legal visa abuses and drove
up the risk of detection to China. Just when an alternative way
to get its operatives in, the Biden government handed China the
golden ticket, warm greetings at the border and rapid releases
with almost no questions asked.
The U.S. intelligence community's own assessments tell us
what is in store. China will remain the most aggressive
espionage actor on U.S. soil and has big plans. Biden's own
2024 DHS threat assessment predicts much more than rapacious
economic espionage. It says the CCP operatives will hunt down
dissidents in America and will use ``physical assault, threats,
harassment, defamation, and kidnapping out of country,'' read
rendition, to ``suppress oppositional voices.''
Almost unbelievably, Beijing already has established inside
the United States what the DHS assessment called police
stations from which CCP operatives surveil and harass
dissidents. About those 50,000 nonspy, economic migrants can
they all be regarded as entirely benevolent, asylum fraud
aside? They are fodder for coerced recruitment by China.
Office of Director of National Intelligence assessments
2023 and 2024 say China is going to ``pressure families back
home to recruit Chinese abroad as informants and operatives.''
As if quick releases after border crossings were not golden
ticket enough, the Biden administration gifted the Chinese
intelligence an especially sparkling new policy. Washington
ordered Border Patrol to reduce the number of interview
questions for incoming Chinese nationals from 40 to just 5, the
Daily Caller has reported.
Why? To move them into the country even faster, including
those who tossed their identity documents and might as well
have given their names as Mickey Mouse. Reporting indicates
they have all learned to easily defeat the 5 questions and be
shown the entrance door to America, which makes them all
strangers, just the way Beijing's spy masters wanted. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bensman follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Bensman.
I thank the witnesses for your valuable testimony, and
let's see, where is my place? We have got--oh, I am sorry. We
are here.
Members will be recognized by order of seniority for their
5 minutes of questioning. An additional round of questioning
may be called after all Members have been recognized.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
Professor Oyen, I think I will start with you. You talked about
risk. In fact, Mr. Ivey opened his comments with commentary
about risks of Asians being discriminated against or Chinese
being discriminated against. Of course, we know that there is
some very difficult history in the United States of that sort.
So what of that? I mean, what are you saying there? What
have you got? Let me just tick off some of the risks that have
been specifically identified in other witnesses' testimony.
I have always understood and lots of evidence before this
Congress indicates that China is engaged in very intensive
economic espionage against the United States. We have heard
testimony. I recited in my opening statement about the
aggressive Chinese money-laundering operations in the United
States.
Mr. Bensman just made reference to in news reports it has
been wide-spread, including one in North Carolina I heard
about, about Chinese ``police stations,'' which are bent on
intimidating, harassing, and in some cases--well, many awful
things against folks of Chinese heritage in the United States.
We have heard about cultural exchange programs and college
campuses being used as Trojan horses for a Chinese intelligence
infiltration. Then you have got a rapidly-increasing population
of Chinese migrants coming in irregularly.
So what about all that? Should that be just ignored or is
it a good thing, perhaps?
Ms. Oyen. I would say neither. I mean, I am suggesting that
in the grand scheme of history you can see that this kind of
migration and these kinds of concerns have existed before, that
the concerns about security risks from irregular migration are
not new. That there are plenty of valid concerns about the
relationship with China and the kinds of Chinese espionage that
might be happening.
I am saying, though, that I do not have any--I have not
seen anything that suggests that this particular population is
part of this espionage network. There is no definitive evidence
one way or the other.
Chairman Bishop. So do you think there needs to be
definitive evidence in the case of every----
Ms. Oyen. I think there needs to be. Well, I mean this is
not up to me to say. This is I am a historian, right? I am not
a policy maker. But because there is no definitive evidence
either way I would caution against this broad-scale assumption
that people who are seeking asylum in the United States are, in
fact, spies coming to undermine it when there are, in fact,
very good other explanations and there are also lots of
historical precedents for that kind of rhetoric having very
negative effects on the existing Chinese-American community.
So I think that the history leads us to have some caution
in how we speak about this population coming in.
Chairman Bishop. So is it a question of how we speak about
it or what we are doing to vet them? Do you think they should
be vetted intensively?
Ms. Oyen. I think every immigrant who comes into the United
States should be vetted, but that is part of the----
Chairman Bishop. I certainly agree with that. They are not
being, so let's let that and set that aside. Would you say that
there are additional risks with China as a global adversary of
the United States that would warrant additional intensive
vetting for Chinese migrants who are entering without legal
authorization?
Ms. Oyen. I think that historically we have seen that it is
at periods of high tension between the United States and China
we have engaged in greater vetting, but we have also seen
historically that the patterns of the people who are engaged
with espionage have not been economic migrants----
Chairman Bishop. Yes.
Ms. Oyen [continuing]. Who are. In fact, the 1950's era or
even the 1900's era people and the 1990's era migrants who came
in by irregular means were not coming in that way.
Chairman Bishop. OK.
Ms. Oyen. I think that knowing that history is important.
Chairman Bishop. I got you. I don't want to cut you off but
let me get to Mr. Bensman before we get done. So how about
that, Mr. Bensman? If I am hearing from the Ranking Member and
Professor Oyen's ideas, we really shouldn't say anything about
this because it is going to be discriminatory. What about that?
Why isn't that true? Or if it is true, what do you say about
it?
Mr. Bensman. Well, the U.S.--excuse me--the U.S. Homeland
Security enterprise, especially in dealing with the border, has
for decades isolated particular nationalities based on our
relations with their governments, for example, Iran. When we
have immigrants from Iran hit the border we will set them aside
and bring in the FBI and CIA and others to interview them to
try to figure out, you know, what they are about. Are they
good? Are they are they fleeing the regime or are they part of
the regime? Are they a terrorist actor?
North Koreans that hit the border, I mean, everybody can
understand why a North Korean would want to leave North Korea,
but we also know North Korea is a source of mischief all over
the world and they are sending their representatives. So we do
separate certain nationalities as a matter of routine----
Chairman Bishop. Yes.
Mr. Bensman [continuing]. From all of the Middle Eastern
countries and it just depends on. But China most certainly we
did all the way up until about last year.
Chairman Bishop. Perhaps we will have another round. I am
conscious of having overstayed my time.
So the Ranking Member, I will--no, no.
Mr. Ivey. You have one more question?
Chairman Bishop. Well, I think I will. I will do----
Mr. Ivey. We are not beating----
Chairman Bishop. I appreciate that, Mr. Ranking Member.
Mr. Ivey [continuing]. The bushes for----
Chairman Bishop. Right, and I appreciate it. Oh, I
appreciate it and thank you for that indulgence.
Yes, let me follow it up in this way. I do think it is
correct to say there is a nationality concern here that is
predicated on a hostile relationship of governments that
counsels additional concern but let me just file this last
question for maybe Mr. Bensman.
I always hear from the Secretary of Homeland Security we
have a global, you know, eruption of migration that accounts
for all of this. Other than the possibility that--and maybe Mr.
Hankinson led with this assorted--and I will probably--maybe I
will direct the question Mr. Hankinson. I am not aware of any
major change in China that would account for this sudden
explosion of Chinese illegal migrants. There is a lot of
government totalitarian control in that country and even in
terms of people leaving the country. So is there something I am
missing? Is there some, you know, chaos that has erupted in
China that would account for this sudden change, a large
change?
Mr. Bensman. Well, I spend a lot of time with the
immigrants. I have interviewed thousands of them. I have met
Chinese. I can never get the Chinese to talk to me. I have an
interpretation app which is difficult anyway, but I don't think
that they would want to talk to me.
But what I gather from my interviews with many thousands of
immigrants on their way here is that they are coming now
because all their friends got in. All their relatives just got
in. The border is open. We are going for it. Well, like, what
if the Americans changed their minds all of a sudden, and so
there is this big rush on?
I have to say that the Chinese are probably no different.
They are going to be looking for lifestyle upgrades. A lot of
the Chinese that I meet on the trail seem very well-resourced,
very well put together. They don't seem like they are starving
peasants.
They often spend tens of thousands of dollars to make the
journey. It is an opportunity for them. Now, the economy in
China is not, you know, as robust as it has been but they can
get in now.
Chairman Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Bensman.
Again, I think the Ranking Member for his indulgence and I
will exercise similar indulgence. I yield to--or I recognize
Mr. Ivey for 5 minutes of questioning and whatever else, too.
Mr. Ivey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that.
I want to separate the apples and oranges out here because
we have got sort-of two conversations about migration. One is
the Southwestern Border, people crossing like a lot of the
other people coming from countries, Central America and the
like. The other is the economic espionage crowd which, as I
understand it, is not crossing at the border. These are people
who are coming over on visas and the like.
The main difference I am told, I was just in a conference
on AI where we were talking a lot about the competition between
the United States and China and the concern that China is
catching us and has passed us potentially on some of these
areas with respect to AI and tech.
Some of it is based on economic espionage. Some of it is
also based on the fact that I think they have 5 times more
engineers and computer scientists than the United States has,
which is why we bring so many of them over.
But one of the points that was made was that 38 percent of
the tech scientists in the United States are from China. Those
are not people who came here, you know, that came across the
border with no documents or falsified documents. They were
people who were brought here by their companies.
In fact, if you talk to some of these companies they will
tell you they are having trouble bringing people over. They
need them because of the engineering and scientific expertise.
They have trouble bringing them over because of the visa
process here in the United States.
In some instances they said, I talked to one VC leader who
said that he was trying to bring somebody over from India. It
took so long that what he did instead was he just set up a
satellite company in Canada and started bringing him over
there.
So in some respects, it is not of, you know, people coming
over here too fast for these types of jobs here in the United
States. They are not coming fast enough for these tech leaders
who want to have them here.
So I did want to make sure, and I don't know if I am
disputing what you said, Mr. Bensman, or not, but I think it is
pretty clear cut that the people coming across the border who
don't have--even if they have a technical background if they
don't have the documents Microsoft is not going to hire them.
Google is not going to hire them. You know, they are not going
to get those kinds of jobs. They are not going to be professors
at Stanford or Harvard or wherever. You can't just come over
here and show up one day and get a job.
So the economic, yes, and that is where the economic
espionage is happening. It is happening at that level. It is
not happening at the level where people are crossing the
border, as I am told by people who, (A), work at the border but
also, more importantly, own and run those companies where they
are complaining most loudly about the economic espionage.
So the focus they want us to make is in part focused on the
Chinese government, which sponsors a lot of that activity and
also where there are technology responses aimed at protecting
the information and better ways and vetting internally to make
sure the right people have the access to that information.
Mr. Singleton, I think you mentioned something about tools
for espionage as well with respect to, I guess, crossing at the
Southwest Border. I would raise the same kind of questions that
I did just a moment ago.
But you also said something about things that Congress can
do to address these problems, and I think it is I am going to
set aside the economic espionage piece for the reasons I just
stated. I think you mentioned something about improving
infrastructure for vetting and the like at the border? I wanted
to give you a chance to elaborate on that.
Mr. Singleton. Thank you very much. I would agree with you
that the vast majority of Chinese nationals who live and study
in the United States stay and contribute to our communities. We
also have to recognize, however, that there are large numbers,
thousands of Chinese nationals who are coming here to from
China to study at our universities at the behest, direction,
and with the sponsorship under the Chinese Communist Party in
support of military civil fusion and its broader strategy.
So enhancing those established, legal mechanisms to both
vet at U.S. embassies and consulates to allow them in, but also
recognizing the threat that exists in that legal immigration
space is critical. I think many of the----
Mr. Ivey. Well, let me ask you on how to bulk that up. How
would you address that?
Mr. Singleton. Having also been a former consular officer I
can acknowledge the amount of time that you have to adjudicate
a visa for a particular entrant is minuscule, sometimes 30
seconds or less to make a decision about a particular student.
One of the things that needs to be done is a much broader
understanding of the Chinese universities that are involved in
military civil fusion and adding additional scrutiny for those
students.
To give great examples, my alma mater, Texas A&M, used to
maintain research partnerships with China's Ocean University
which is responsible for constructing Chinese military
submarines. Other Chinese universities like Sichuan University
develop China's nuclear weapons, and yet we allow high-level
STEM-related research partnerships between those two schools
that are wholly unregulated.
As a consular officer, I am wholly unequipped to make a
decision about whether that individual represents a threat. So
it really does require us to recognize how China has tapped
into its civilian university structure to in effect weaponize
it.
Mr. Ivey. On that point, and I appreciate you for letting
me run over, Mr. Chairman, with respect to tech companies so
you mentioned sort-of the academic community. Are there similar
sorts of issues with respect to the high-tech community as
well?
Mr. Singleton. There have been a number of documented
instances in which that has occurred, but again, I do----
Mr. Ivey. Give me an example.
Mr. Singleton. Sure. I mean, I think that there have been
several serious FBI indictments in the last 4 years that talk
about the placement of Chinese nationals in high-tech
companies, particularly in Silicon Valley, and then that those
individuals are sending back research, not public information,
back to Chinese individuals and universities.
There is also occurring----
Mr. Ivey. Well, let me stop you there. Did they not go
through a vetting process or----
Mr. Singleton. I think it shows that our vetting process is
currently inadequate and that when those nationals do gain
entrance and employment there is no follow-on screening. For
example, if a Chinese national from a Chinese military civil
fusion university were to matriculate at a U.S. school with
their political science and then the next day change it to
nuclear physics, there is no one monitoring that change in
process. So it is both pre- and post-facto screening that is--
--
Mr. Ivey. Let me stick with the companies here for a
second. So with respect to, I don't know, Microsoft, since they
will be here next week apparently or in the next few weeks,
they hire somebody and they are not monitoring them or they
don't have internal controls with respect to protecting their
confidential information? I mean----
Mr. Singleton. It is that we are talking about a completely
haphazard process. Nothing is required in statute or required
and even today Microsoft announced that it was moving thousands
of its AI engineers outside of China, relocating them because
of concerns about Chinese military civil fusion and the
potential risks to losing critical cutting-edge technology
because of Chinese espionage.
Mr. Ivey. OK. All right.
Mr. Chairman, thank you. I appreciate you for letting me
run on.
Chairman Bishop. I thank the Ranking Member and I have,
well, one nit to pick and I will give you an opportunity to
respond if I can before we go on.
There was a comment in your opening statement staff handed
to me that one of the sector chiefs gave that testimony that,
``We treat everybody the same. It doesn't matter where you come
from. It doesn't matter what your nationality is or what your
religious beliefs are. We are going to treat everybody exactly
the same.''
But then immediately below that a question was asked, ``Do
you know if any additional investigation or interviews are
conducted on Chinese nationals in U.S. sector?''
``Yes.''
``And that they are?''
``Yes, that they are. Why?''
Then I am skipping a little bit here but he says, ``I have
sector intelligence unit agents that are assigned to the FBI
Joint Terrorism Task Force team and so FBI has expressed an
interest in doing additional screening and interviews for
Chinese nationals.''
I yield back, yield to the Ranking Member.
Mr. Ivey. Well, just an observation, I appreciate that
clarification for me and correction, but I thought our panel
was just testifying a few minutes ago that you only get 5
questions----
Chairman Bishop. Yes.
Mr. Ivey [continuing]. When they are coming in. So I am not
sure which it is.
Chairman Bishop. I am not sure where it comes out either.
Mr. Ivey. Yes.
Chairman Bishop. I think, but maybe we are in somewhat
agreement. Maybe we are in agreement. I am not sure about if
there is a need for more intensive vetting of Chinese
nationals. Whether it is happening or not I am not totally
clear.
So I thank the Ranking Member again for the spirit of
collegiality in which we do our subcommittee hearings and may
it extend to the rest of Congress.
But with that, I will recognize the gentleman from
Mississippi, Mr. Ezell for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Ezell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Over the past year this committee has shown the failure of
the Biden administration's open border policies. Under the
President's watch there been over 8 million illegal aliens
released into this country.
But what is not clearly revealed in the group of 8 million
illegals as an alarming statistics. The fastest-growing group
crossing the border illegally is not from Mexico or South
America. They are from China.
Since President Biden has taken office, CBP encounters with
Chinese nationals has risen over 4,200 percent. The CCP has
targeted businesses, universities, and lawmakers and its
efforts to undermine America. The thought that CCP would not
use an open borders to their advantage is nonsense.
Last year President Biden's DHS released guidance that
significantly reduced the vetting process of these Chinese
nationals. The number of questions, what we talked about
earlier, has gone from 40 to just 5.
Mr. Hankinson, do you believe the Biden administration is
making it any easier for the Chinese nationals to enter this
country illegally?
Mr. Hankinson. I do. Excuse me. Yes, I do. I think the
charts and the graphs and the statistics are pretty clear that
when people understand that they will be released once they
arrive in the United States as long as they express a credible
fear and intent to launch an asylum claim, and we do know that
85 percent, 90 percent of those claims are fraudulent, meaning
that they are based on facts that just don't generate a claim
for asylum that will be approved, then they come.
With social media that has sort-of greatly magnified
exponentially the information that is getting back to countries
all around the world. I think we are up to, like, 180 countries
now that have been caught entering illegally at the border in
the last few years.
So when you say that you are not going to detain people,
when you are releasing them on their own recognizance, when you
are paroling them in, and when they know that the system will
not be able to process them for years, then you send a clear
signal and people understand it.
Mr. Ezell. Thank you. Do you know what 5 questions the
Chinese nationals in the interview? Do you know what the 5
questions are?
Mr. Hankinson. Well, I have a completely unconfirmed
snapshot of what they are, and they are just basic questions
about where you come from? Do you have any affiliation with the
Chinese government? Did you pay for your trip to the United
States? Did you pay a smuggler? Have you got any prior arrests?
A shortened version of the form that visa applicants have
to answer what you are supposed to say. I don't have a criminal
record. I am not a member of the Nazi Party or the Communist
Party and so on.
Mr. Ezell. Yes. So they just check it off so there is no
real verification whether they are telling the truth or not?
Mr. Hankinson. There is absolutely no way to verify. If
someone at the border says I don't have a criminal record, we
don't have the criminal records of China easily accessible. If
we ask the Chinese for them they wouldn't give them to us I am
pretty sure unless it was someone that they wanted back, for
example a dissident.
Mr. Ezell. Yes. When we do obtain any information and run
it throughout the internal databases do you know if China is
providing any information on the aliens? Do you know if they
are doing any of that?
Mr. Hankinson. You are asking if the Chinese share their--
as far as I know, no. We have countries in the Visa Waiver
Program that do share criminal records with us that that can be
done automatically, but as far as I am aware there is no
automatic data sharing with China of either fact data or bio
data.
Mr. Ezell. Do you have any opinion about President Biden
and his policies? Is this putting America at a greater risk?
Mr. Hankinson. I think statistically it is undeniable. If
you have 50,000 additional people and you have no confirmation
of their background, their criminal records, their past
affiliation or present affiliation with the government or any
of its entities, I think it is almost certain that a
proportion, probably very small, but a proportion of them are
coming here with the intent to at some point do some harm.
Mr. Ezell. Do you have any examples of any of these bad
actors that have entered the country illegally?
Mr. Hankinson. Well, one recent example that struck me was
in March of this year in 29 Palms in California. There was a
Chinese man who, I think, had crossed the border illegally and
been released who attempted to get on to the military base. At
the time the local headlines, the local press said he was
confused and he said he was lost and he didn't know where he
was going.
I wrote at the time in an op-ed that, geez, if you were
going to try to scope out a base and try to get some basic
intel and figure out what the security procedures were at U.S.
military bases, what better way than to send some, excuse me,
but a doofus.
But then I later found out that there have been over 100 of
these incidents by Chinese nationals in the past few years
according to a source quoted by the Wall Street Journal. So one
time maybe, but 100 times starts to seem a little bit more like
a pattern.
Mr. Ezell. Pretty obvious.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Bishop. I thank the gentleman for yielding back.
I now represent--recognize the gentlelady, Mrs. Ramirez,
for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mrs. Ramirez. Thank you, Chairman and Ranking Member.
I want to start by expressing my disappointment that this
committee still allows special witnesses from an organization
that has been designated as a hate group for publishing the
works of white nationalists.
Mr. Bensman, yes or no, have you ever used or invoked
invasion rhetoric or language when referencing migrants?
Mr. Bensman. No, I have not.
Mrs. Ramirez. OK. Well, let me ask you a follow-up. Is your
Twitter handle @bensmantodd, correct?
Mr. Bensman. Yes.
Mrs. Ramirez. OK. So I want to show you here something. As
you can see, I have a number of your Twitter posts here and it
is not hard to find examples of you or someone who is doing a
good job pretending to be you uplifting the same invasion
rhetoric central to the white nationalist and anti-Semitic
great replacement conspiracy theory. Let me read just one of
them.
``Border invasion series,'' oh, let me read one more, one
more, ``Biden administration rechanneled migrant waves to hide
invasion at Southern Border.''
Folks, no one from a hate group should ever be invited to
provide testimony before this committee. It hurts our integrity
as a committee and it is why as I am sitting here I am going to
direct my questions to an actual expert.
The Department of State's 2023 human rights documents that
significant human rights issues in China include credible
reports of unlawful killings, forced disappearances, torture,
and arbitrary detention by the Chinese government, forced
labor, and genocide against ethnic minorities.
So my question is to Dr. Oyen. It seems Chinese nationals
seeking humanitarian relief have plenty to fear. Can you
briefly speak to the human rights conditions and risks in
China? Let me specifically ask you how has the Chinese
government increased repression of its citizenry under
President Xi?
Ms. Oyen. There has been a tightening of controls since
2012 when President Xi first took power and in the recent years
since he has become a essentially permanent leader that has
increased as well.
We have we have seen this. There is the long-standing, the
longer history of the persecution of the Uyghur people, but
there has also been very specific examples of Chinese and
Muslim adherents to their faith not being permitted to worship
in the ways that they choose.
There has also been persecution of people who were part of
something that is called the Chinese Democratic Party. There
was a period of open flourishing of ideas where people created
ideas when talking about future plans for China and ways in
which the Chinese government might serve people.
And that the people who were part of that party and who
were engaged in that have been largely subject to a crackdown
where they have been arrested and harassed for their beliefs.
In some cases have successfully sought asylum.
So there is also just built into this last decade, 12 years
of Xi Jinping's rules, there has been a tightening of laws and
control over the extent to which people can talk freely about
the government, the ways that they criticize the government.
There has been tightening of internet controls that already
existed, right, but there is continuing cracking down on
internet controls. So certainly there are examples of the
government being authoritarian and being hard on civilians such
as that they might decide that they can't live their lives or
they can't live their lives free of repression.
Mrs. Ramirez. Thank you, Dr. Oyen. It seems to me, I mean,
based on your testimony and even seeing what you submitted that
we have to take seriously that there are Chinese nationals that
are fleeing oppressive regimes. They are seeking refuge and
humanitarian relief and that those who flee authoritarian China
are no different than all of those who flee oppressive regimes.
Some of those asylum seekers were the ancestors of the
people that are in this room right now, and it is unacceptable
that in the middle of celebrating the contributions of our
Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander
communities here we are with rhetoric about Chinese immigrant
invasion.
I am not surprised, however, because a century ago the
United States enacted the Immigration Act of 1924, a law that
heavily influenced by racist beliefs that close the door on
immigration from Asia, building on the Chinese Exclusion Act of
1882, and here we are in this committee now.
So with that on record, Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Bishop. The gentlewoman yields back.
I now recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Strong, for
5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to talk more about the points Mr. Ezell mentioned.
Mr. Bensman, most of the Chinese migrants that illegally
entered the United States at the Southwest Border are first-
timers and therefore they do not have any flags in the U.S.
criminal database.
The CCP does not share criminal information with U.S. law
enforcement. I will emphasize that unless our intelligence
agencies have a reason to flag a migrant all CBP can do is rely
on a migrant's story.
Most Chinese migrants state that they are here to claim
asylum or for economic reasons. From a national security
perspective, is relying only on a migrant's word enough to
determine whether the migrant came to the United States with
nefarious intent? What types of risk does this blind reliance
pose?
Mr. Bensman. Thank you. First of all, I would like to
recommend a book to Mrs. Ramirez, ``Making Hate Pay,'' by Tyler
O'Neil, ``The corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center.''
I also want to tell you, Ms. Ramirez, that as far as I don't
know what you have on your board, I would like to study it,
there is no hateful anti-Semitic speech in my Twitter feed.
I am Jewish, and we don't really get with white
nationalists. That is not our thing so get your facts straight.
As far as your----
Mrs. Ramirez. Mr. Chairman, he is referring to me so I just
wondered----
Chairman Bishop. It is the gentleman's time from Alabama.
Mr. Strong. Thank you, sir. Let's go back to that question.
What type of risk does the blind reliance pose?
Mr. Bensman. What type of risk does----
Mr. Strong. What type of risk does this blind reliance
related to national security, just what--if they tell us they
are great people, that is what we are doing at our border right
now. Oh, I want to come to America. What does this pose
whenever they say come on in?
Mr. Bensman. Well, it is the ultimate stranger danger at
the border. That is our problem with having mass migration at
these historic levels. We can't know who anyone is. We can't
really go to the Chinese, as I think my colleague said, for an
intel share.
We can't go to really very many countries at all for an
intel share.
Mr. Strong. Thank you. What ways can CBP potentially reduce
that risk?
Mr. Bensman. Well, there is not a whole lot they can do.
They will run text database checks. They will maybe run some
criminal history checks and then they will let them in. But if
they haven't been in the United States to commit crimes in the
past there is not going to be--they are going to come up with a
negative, right? It will be a big blank.
So you just have to, kind-of, take their word for it. A lot
of them, like I said, dump their ID documents, their passports,
and say my name is Mickey Mouse.
Mr. Strong. OK. I know that Russia invaded Ukraine and the
Ukrainians defended itself. Hamas invaded Israel and Israel
defended itself. The United States is being invaded, and I
think that is the right word, by 160 different countries, and
this administration has done nothing. Ten million illegal
aliens coming across the border.
I will say this again. This fentanyl is going to kill a
generation of Americans. It is not a Republican issue. It is
not a Democratic issue. It is an American issue.
I will also bring up what is happening right now at the
border. Border security for every drone they are flying the
Mexican cartel is flying 17. They are coming into U.S. air
space bringing fentanyl, 60 pounds, 80 pounds, 100 pounds at a
time, and we are doing nothing. Killing a generation of
Americans.
You have mentioned some of the questions that are asked.
You know, it is almost comical the questions. You know, why
don't they ask them what kind of chewing gum do they like or
their favorite city in America or their favorite color because
they are getting the intelligence of the questions they are
asking is about as important as that.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Bishop. The gentleman yields back.
I now recognize the gentlelady from New York, I believe,
right, Ms. Clarke.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I thank
our Ranking Member. I want to yield some time to my colleague,
Mrs. Ramirez of Illinois.
Mrs. Ramirez. Thank you, Congresswoman Clarke. Just to
follow up from the remarks that the witness just made, so I
said the organization and then I said your Tweets, and we will
be happy to give you a printout. There are so many of them so
you will have an opportunity to read them closely after
committee.
But I want to make sure that--Mr. Chairman, I want to enter
this into the record which is a article from the Southern
Poverty Law Center that ranks immigrant studies as one of the
white nationalist organizations.
Mr. Strong. I object.
Mrs. Ramirez. OK. Well, then let me see if I can enter this
court record here that where the Center for Immigration Studies
filed a case against the Southern Poverty Law Center, but the
courts actually found this to--they dismissed the motion
because there was not enough information to be able to
determine that they had a case against them.
Mr. Ivey. Mr. Chairman, I would move to include in the
record both of the documents that the gentlelady from Illinois
has offered.
Chairman Bishop. I had been so moved. Is there a motion at
the table?
Mr. Strong. Motion.
Chairman Bishop. A motion before--there is no debate on
that motion?
All in favor of the motion on the table, say aye.
All opposed, say no.
I hear the motion to have been approved and the----
Mr. Strong. I would ask for a recorded vote, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Bishop. It is a recorded vote. All in favor, let's
see, we have to--the Clerk will call the roll.
Ms. Clarke. Mr. Chairman, I did yield my time to Mrs.
Ramirez. Since we are going through this process, I hope that
my time will be restored.
Mr. Ivey. I would ask the Chair to pause the clock at where
was stopped.
Chairman Bishop. It appears to me the clerk pause the clock
at 3:15, which I assume is pursuant to the rule.
Ms. Clarke. Well, it was actually about 4 minutes----
Chairman Bishop. Well----
Mr. Ivey. When the objection came.
Chairman Bishop. I am going to--if they are able to
establish what the time was I have no problem with putting it
back as it was, but the request was not made until now.
Mr. Ivey. Well, let's do the vote, but I would suggest to
the Chair that we have been fairly flexible on time going both
ways today.
Chairman Bishop. I concur about that.
Mr. Ivey. All right, thank you.
Chairman Bishop. The clerk will call the roll.
The Clerk. Ms. Greene of Georgia. Sorry. Ms. Greene of
Georgia.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Ezell.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Strong.
Mr. Strong.
Mr. Strong. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Strong votes aye.
Mr. Crane.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Ivey.
Mr. Ivey. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Ivey votes no.
Mr. Thanadar.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mrs. Ramirez.
Mrs. Ramirez. No.
The Clerk. Mrs. Ramirez votes no.
Ms. Clarke.
Ms. Clarke. No.
The Clerk. Ms. Clarke votes no.
Chairman Bishop. The Chairman votes no.
The Clerk. Mr. Bishop----
Chairman Bishop. Excuse me, the Chairman votes aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Bishop votes aye.
Mr. Ivey. I liked it better the first time.
Chairman Bishop. The clerk will report.
The Clerk. On that vote, Mr. Chairman, there were 2 ayes
and 3 noes.
Chairman Bishop. The motion on the table fails. The motion
before the committee is the motion--or the motion of the
gentleman, the Ranking Member, to admit the item into the
record.
All in favor will say aye.
All opposed, no.
The noes have it.
Mr. Ivey. I ask for a recorded vote.
Chairman Bishop. A recorded vote is ordered. The clerk will
call the roll.
The Clerk. Ms. Greene.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Ezell.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Strong.
Mr. Strong. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Strong votes no.
Mr. Crane.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Ivey.
Mr. Ivey. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Ivey votes aye.
Mr. Thanadar.
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mrs. Ramirez.
Mrs. Ramirez. Aye.
The Clerk. Mrs. Ramirez votes aye.
Ms. Clarke.
Ms. Clarke. Aye.
The Clerk. Ms. Clarke votes aye.
Chairman Bishop. The Chairman votes no.
The Clerk. Chairman Bishop votes no.
Chairman Bishop. The clerk will report.
The Clerk. On that vote, Mr. Chairman, there were 3 ayes
and 2 noes.
Chairman Bishop. The motion is adopted and the item will be
received into the record.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
------
Chairman Bishop. The time is with the gentlelady of New
York.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
We are here today because Republicans are demagoguing and
exploiting the xenophobic and white supremacist ideologies that
are fueling the immigration debate in this Nation.
For those who are showing up at our border I am concerned
about how we as a Nation are going to address what is basically
a broken immigration system. People don't choose to leave their
families and communities, their culture, their language on a
whim. Most often people leave because their very lives are at
stake.
Just 700 miles from our border, the Nation of Haiti is
facing an unprecedented crisis. Gangs control their capital
city, Port-au-Prince, and every-day citizens are being
terrorized by brutal murderers and kidnappings. Millions of
Haitians face food insecurity and given the choice between
starvation and violence and illicit migration, it is little
wonder that people arrive at our borders.
Though conditions in China are very different it is never
easy for an individual to choose to migrate, and I believe that
we as a Nation, particularly a Nation of immigrants, have an
obligation to bring our immigration system into the 21st
Century so that we can live up to the creed of our Nation.
Dr. Oyen, what can you tell us about the demographics of
the Chinese border-crossers and why they are leaving China and
how they integrate into communities in the United States once
they arrive?
Ms. Oyen. Based on what has been reported so far, a lot of
the reporting seems to be that they are from China's expansive
middle class. You will see that there are people who have spent
a couple thousand equivalents of U.S. dollars to make the trip,
and they have a harrowing journey through Ecuador and through
the Darien Gap and up.
There are people who spent tens of thousands of dollars
which usually allowed them to fly the entire way to Tijuana and
then cross the border.
The reason why that, sort-of, expansive middle class seems
to be the population that is moving, it is people who have
something to sell, to have the money to do that, but it is also
people who have been particularly severely hit by the zero-
COVID policies and the economic fallout from the pandemic.
So there is a lot of small business owners who have lost
their businesses or have lost jobs or don't see the kinds of
jobs that they are looking for or don't see opportunities
available to them and so that becomes an argument for economic
migration in this way.
So the demographics do appear to be predominantly people
traveling alone and predominantly male, based on the numbers
who are coming into Ecuador which has visa-free entry from
China. So it does appear to be that is the population that is
most likely out of work, that very often can't find and is not
happy in China.
In some cases there is, you know, demographic changes in
China that make more men than women so and then, of course,
there is historical reasons why Chinese men have usually
undertaken risky immigration journeys.
Ms. Clarke. Very well.
Well, Mr. Chairman, I really think that as part of a
Committee on Homeland Security we have an obligation to really
bring our immigration laws into the 21st Century and do it in a
bipartisan manner. I hope that you will be a proponent for that
going forward and in the future.
Having said that, I thank you for the opportunity and I
yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Bishop. The gentlewoman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Higgins for 5 minutes of
questioning.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My colleagues across the aisle, I am just visiting this
subcommittee today and I appreciate being here. I know I don't
have the right to vote because I am not on this subcommittee. I
sit on another one, but I would have voted in support of my
Republican colleagues today. Let the historical record reflect
that fact.
Let me also state that my Democrat colleagues across the
aisle appear to be saying to Americans across the country that
have endured border policies enacted on the day that President
Biden was inaugurated and began his actions, Executive Actions
to change the policy of this country to open our border.
It wasn't the cartels that changed on January 20, 2021. It
was the President of the United States.
It wasn't the 1,954 miles of our border that changed in
January 2021. It was a President of the United States changed
our policies and the world was listening, was it not, Mr.
Bensman, as you pointed out.
So Americans that have endured 15 million illegals crossing
into our country in 4 years, crime waves rolling across America
from sea to shining sea, fentanyl poisoning killing 100,000
Americans per year, Americans across the country that have an
objection to that, and we have got a problem with that.
Apparently Democrats are saying we are all bunch of Nazis,
white supremacists, antisemitic. This is disconnected from
reality, man. America is suffering generational trauma because
of the Biden administration policies that have blown our border
wide open.
Now immigrants of means, Chinese healthy and well-funded
coming into our country being granted what? Asylum. Is a
healthy, well-funded, warrior age, young men coming into our
country, nobody over there has a problem with that?
Mr. Bensman, you mentioned interviewing thousands you said.
That is quite a lot. I would say that places you in the expert
category, sir.
How can we confirm who these Chinese nationals rolling
across our Southern Border, thousands at a time now, how can we
confirm? How do we know who they are? They tell us. They give
us a name. They give us some documentation, but they are
healthy. They are well-funded. They could buy documentation
anywhere, quality documentation. How do we know who they are?
Are we taking any biometric data from them? Are we getting
any documentation, DNA, fingerprints, retinal scans,
photographs, et cetera?
Mr. Bensman. We should be. There should be biometrics
collected at different points along the trail in Panama, for
example, Costa Rica, if they go through those.
Mr. Higgins. At a processing center?
Mr. Bensman. Yes, through the----
Mr. Higgins. You are talking about at a DHS-run processing
center in another country. But does the United States, the DHS,
have possession, from your experience of interviewing these
thousands of illegal immigrants, does the United States have
files on these people, who they are--fingerprints, retinal
scans, et cetera?
Mr. Bensman. I would say in general they do not. They will
have, and especially they will have maybe a first fingerprint
from somewhere along the trail. They may take them at the
border once they get here, but they don't really have anything
to bounce them off against.
Mr. Higgins. OK. So these----
Mr. Bensman. The real----
Mr. Higgins. These Chinese nationals coming into our
country from Europe experience or then maybe anyone can answer
this, are they are being reviewed for gang affiliations and
gang tattoos, triad tattoos, et cetera?
Mr. Bensman. No.
Mr. Higgins. I see a no.
Mr. Singleton. Currently, no.
Mr. Singleton.
Dr. Oyen, do you know if these Chinese nationals are at
least, you know, being looked at for tattoos coming into our
country?
Ms. Oyen. I would not know that, no.
Mr. Higgins. You don't know.
Mr. Hankinson, are they being checked?
Mr. Hankinson. I wouldn't think they have the time to do a
whole lot of checking given how quickly they are being
released.
Mr. Higgins. Take your shirt off, 10 seconds, tattoos, yes
or no? We do it in jails across the country every day at the
local, State, and Federal level. We look for tattoos, gang
tattoos. We could do it at the border if we wanted to without
hiring one more agent or spending one more penny. Take your
shirt of. Do you have tattoos, yes or no? It is simple. We do
it at jails across the country.
Are we are doing that, Mr. Bensman?
Mr. Bensman. I would say not.
Mr. Higgins. That answer is no. The answer is no. Well, my
goodness, I have expired my time, Mr. Chairman, but I have not
expired my passion. Thank you, I yield.
Chairman Bishop. The gentleman yields back.
I had some indication, an inkling that we might proceed to
a second round of the questioning, but I don't believe in the
light of the turn of the hearing that we will do that. I had
started off with great optimism about the nature of the
hearing, but it is unfortunate.
I will say it is amazing that the person injecting the
acrimony is 1 of the 9 Democrats to vote against a resolution
condemning the October 7 attack, also voted present on a
resolution to bar Hamas members and those who participated in
October 7 attack from entering our country. Astonishing.
I will thank the witnesses for your valuable testimony and
the Members for your questions. Members of the subcommittee may
have additional questions for the witnesses, and we would ask
the witnesses to respond in writing.
Pursuant to committee rule VII(D), the hearing record will
be open for 10 days. With that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X I
----------
Questions From Honorable August Pfluger for Simon R. Hankinson
Question 1a. The PRC has expanded its activities and influence in
Latin America in recent years, financing and developing critical
infrastructure and entrapping governments in debt through programs like
the Belt and Road Initiative. China has also increased its military
ties in Latin America, selling arms and equipment to Venezuela,
Bolivia, Ecuador, and other countries in the region.
What concerns should we have about China's growing presence in the
Western Hemisphere?
Answer. Concerns about China's recent activity in the Western
Hemisphere are rooted in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) concerted
use of state power across domains. In Latin America, China uses
political and economic power with its investment in dual-use
infrastructure to serve strategic objectives and facilitate potential
future military integration. The Belt and Road Initiative is a key
factor, as 21 states in the region hold membership, creating formal
inroads to facilitate CCP influence in the region. In Peru, for
example, CCP-owned China Southern Power Grid acquired approximately $3
billion in assets from their domestic power grid, leading to 70 percent
Chinese control in this sector.
Recent Chinese lithium mining investments in Argentina alone total
more than $2 billion, and generally speaking China is outcompeting U.S.
infrastructure investments in Latin America. New CCP-backed
infrastructure projects raise additional concern due to their dual-use
and strategic implications. Seventeen Chinese infrastructure projects
focused on constructing deep-water ports are now under way in the
region, including multiple projects that surround the Panama Canal.
Contracts for investment projects are carried out by state-owned
companies, such as China Communications Construction (CCC) and China
Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), that are informally part of China's
expansive military-civil fusion program. Additionally, Chinese
companies such as Huawei continue to create inroads through the
construction of 4G and 5G telecommunications infrastructure throughout
the region. The increased foothold could allow the CCP access to
treasure troves of data by virtue of the PRC's 2015 National Security
Law, which requires all firms to actively contribute to national
security and cooperate with Government requests for information.
Question 1b. To what extent do you believe the Chinese Communist
Party may be recruiting individuals in these countries to help carry
out their influence in the United States?
Answer. The CCP is working with Latin American countries to advance
Chinese interests in the region at the expense of U.S. security and
prosperity. Since the turn of the century, the PLA has conducted over
200 senior leader visits to Latin America and the Caribbean. Last year,
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva concluded a visit to
China by pledging to work with Beijing to ``rebalance'' global politics
and further their joint trading interests. A rebalancing of
international systems and norms would benefit Chinese interests at the
cost of American interests. Furthermore, the Wall Street Journal
reported that Cuba is allowing China to build a surveillance facility
for Chinese intelligence services to monitor maritime traffic and
electronic communications from the United States.
Beyond building ties with political leaders, China is also working
to establish a cultural and educational relationship with the Latin
American people. China has established at least 39 Confucious
institutes in the region, which are Chinese propagandist institutions
with known ties to China's security and intelligence agencies. China
also awards Hanban scholarships to Latin America's best China scholars,
along with free trips to China for academics and journalists, providing
additional opportunities for recruitment and intelligence collection.
Questions From Honorable August Pfluger for Craig Singleton
Question 1. This Congress, the House Homeland Security Committee
has led efforts to expose the malign and threatening activity occurring
at clandestine Chinese Police Stations in the United States. In April
2023, the FBI arrested two individuals for operating a Chinese police
station in Manhattan, New York, where they destroyed evidence,
illegally stalked and assaulted people in the United States, conducted
transnational repression, and ultimately obstructed justice.
Recently, FBI Director Wray said, ``The PRC has made it clear that
it considers every sector that makes our society run as fair game in
its bid to dominate on the world stage.'' Now, this quote was in
reference to civilian and critical infrastructure, but it sounds like
they are already targeting the interworking of our civil society.
A report in September 2022 revealed the presence of 110 Chinese
police stations located around the world. In your opinion, what is the
greatest threat posed by these Chinese police stations to U.S. citizens
and our national security?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question 2a. As we've discussed in this committee before, the
Chinese Communist Party has a pattern of engaging in transnational
repression and intimidation tactics against Chinese nationals,
affiliates, and especially dissidents living in the United States.
While this is not a new strategy for the CCP, I imagine it has been
exacerbated by the increased presence of potentially malign actors with
ties to the CCP crossing our border illegally.
Do you believe the increase in transnational repression could be
related to irregular, illegal immigration of Chinese nationals, some of
whom may have ties to the People's Republic of China?
Question 2b. What type of tactics does the CCP use, and do you
expect them to continue?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
Question From Honorable August Pfluger for Todd Bensman
Question. The PRC has expanded its activities and influence in
Latin America in recent years, financing and developing critical
infrastructure and entrapping governments in debt through programs like
the Belt and Road Initiative. China has also increased its military
ties in Latin America, selling arms and equipment to Venezuela,
Bolivia, Ecuador, and other countries in the region.
The Associated Press recently reported that short video platforms
and messaging apps are being used to provide on-the-ground footage and
step-by-step guides from China to the United States, including tips on
what to pack, how to survive in the jungle, what hotels and guides to
use, how much to bribe police officers in certain countries along the
way, and of course, what to do when encountering U.S. immigration
officers. Apps like TikTok and Douyin are the primary platforms for
this communication. How might these practices be used to facilitate and
assist PRC operatives once they are already in the United States?
Answer. Response was not received at the time of publication.
A P P E N D I X I I
----------
Statement of Martin Kim, Director, Immigration Advocacy, Asian
Americans Advancing Justice--AAJC
May 16, 2024
Chairman Bishop, Ranking Member Ivey, and Members of the
subcommittee, I write today with great concern about how the recent
increase in Chinese migration to the Southern Border has been framed by
some members of this subcommittee. While there are legitimate and
serious criticisms of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Xi
Jinping regime, those criticism do not justify the attacks we have seen
on immigrants fleeing the repression of the CCP and present a risk to
the broader Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice--AAJC (``Advancing Justice--
AAJC'') is a national non-profit organization founded in 1991 dedicated
to advancing civil and human rights for Asian Americans. We strive to
empower Asian American and Pacific Islander communities across the
country by bringing local and national constituencies together and
advocating for Federal policy that reflects the needs of Asian
Americans and promotes a fair and equitable society for all. Advancing
Justice--AAJC is the leading national advocate for immigration and
anti-racial profiling policy on behalf of the Asian American community,
and in this capacity, we work to address the racial profiling and
discriminatory targeting of Asian Americans and immigrants.
As the subcommittee's invited witnesses noted, the recent increase
in Chinese migration is due to a variety of factors, including
increased oppression by the CCP and worsening economic conditions
within China. These heightened pressures come at a moment when the wait
times for Chinese immigrants looking to migrate through other channels
have skyrocketed: according to the most recent visa bulletin, and as
just one example, Chinese immigrants with approved family petitions who
applied 3 to 17 years ago are only now eligible to receive family-based
visas.\1\ As might be expected, the increased pressures leading people
to leave China combined with the difficulty securing other pathways
into the United States has led to a change in the historical migration
patterns of this population.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Visa Bulletin, U.S. Dep't of State, Vol. X, No. 89 (May 2024),
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-
bulletin/2024/visa-bulletin-for-may-2024.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Given that the United States is a country that values democracy and
individual liberty, it is no surprise that those fleeing repressive
environments like the Xi Jinping regime seek to immigrate to the United
States. In fact, it is precisely these kinds of immigrants that the
United States should welcome. History is filled with examples of
immigrants from totalitarian and repressive regimes seeking refuge
here, whether they were Jewish immigrants who fled Nazi Germany or
those seeking to leave the Soviet Union during the Cold War. We should
not look at immigrants, like those from China, coming to the United
States from these conditions with automatic suspicion.
However, instead of welcoming Chinese immigrants, Members of this
subcommittee have called this new Chinese immigration ``illegal'' and
claim that these immigrants represent a ``security risk.'' While it is
true that the number of Chinese immigrants at the Southern Border has
increased, it is important to note that--contrary to the framing of
this hearing--seeking asylum at the Southern Border is not illegal: it
is a human right enshrined in international \2\ and domestic law.\3\
Chinese immigrants, like other immigrants, have the right to seek
asylum here in the United States. Similarly, even though the CCP has
engaged in activities seeking to undermine U.S. interests, there is no
evidence that all or even a significant proportion of Chinese
immigrants have strong ties to the CCP.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, signed July 28,
1951, 189 U.N.T.S. 150 (entered into force April 22, 1954); Protocol
relating to the Status of Refugees, signed Jan. 31, 1967, 606 U.N.T.S.
267 (entered into force October 4, 1967).
\3\ 8 U.S.C. 1158.
\4\ Fu Ting, Ali Swenson, and Didi Tang, Trump suggests Chinese
migrants are in the US to build an `army.' The migrants tell another
story, AP NEWS (May 14, 2024), https://apnews.com/article/trump-china-
immigrant-migrants-border-army-05478af9702aa8cc0264bb52- c8ba7bd9.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When immigrants from China are singled out as ``security risks'' or
as ``spies'' it can have significant, adverse, and even violent
consequences for Chinese Americans and API communities more broadly.\5\
In the case of this hearing, the implication that Chinese immigrants
fleeing China are a national security risk plays into historical
stereotypes of the ``perpetual foreigner'' and recent incidents of
anti-Asian violence. The rhetoric and framing deployed in this hearing
fails to meaningfully distinguish between the Chinese government and
Chinese citizens. Instead, Members of this committee should seek to
better understand the nuances that impact migration patterns.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Viet Thanh Nguyen and Janelle Wong, Bipartisan political
rhetoric about Asia leads to anti-Asian violence here, THE WASHINGTON
POST (Mar. 19, 2021), https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/atlanta-
shooting-political-rhetoric-violence/2021/03/19/f882f8e8-88b9-11eb-
8a8b-5cf82c3dffe4_story.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As we have seen time and time again, overbroadly attributing anti-
U.S. sentiment to Chinese people is not only a misrepresentation of a
diverse group, but also leads to discriminatory blowback against the
Asian American community in the United States. Racist stereotypes about
Asian American ``foreignness'' and ``disloyalty'' have been used to
justify incarceration, assault, and even the murder of our community
members. During World War II, unfounded suspicion of Japanese Americans
led to the forced incarceration of over 120,000 Japanese Americans by
the U.S. Government. In 1982, anti-Japanese sentiment stemming from
economic competition in the United States led to the brutal assault and
murder of Chinese American Vincent Chin, who was mistaken as a Japanese
American. After 9/11, misplaced blame for terrorist attacks fed
directly into rampant Islamophobia and violent attacks against Muslim
Americans, as well as Sikh and South Asian Americans who were
inaccurately perceived to be Muslim. More recently during the peak of
the COVID-19 pandemic, prominent politicians wrongfully attributed the
disease to Chinese individuals in our community, leading to a 339
percent increase in reported violent anti-Asian attacks across the
United States.\6\ And even more recently, there has been a 180 percent
increase in anti-Muslim hate incidents exacerbated by the conflict in
Gaza, the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and Israel.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Kimmy Yam, Anti-Asian hate crimes increased 339 percent
nationwide last year, report says, NBCNEWS.COM (Jan. 31, 2022, updated
Feb. 14, 2022), https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-
hate-crimes-increased-339-percent-nationwide-last-year-repo-rcna14282
(last updated May 22, 2024).
\7\ Kanishka Singh, Anti-Muslim incidents jump in US amid Israel-
Gaza war, REUTERS (Jan. 29, 2024), https://www.reuters.com/world/us/
anti-muslim-incidents-jump-us-amid-israel-gaza-war-2024-01-29/; Nicquel
Terry Ellis and Chandelis Duster, `Anxiety and fear are high:' US
Palestinians, Muslims fear a return to post-9/11 Islamophobia, CNN.COM
(Oct. 17, 2023), https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/17/us/us-palestinians-
muslims-fear-islamophobia-surge-reaj/index.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We agree with the subcommittee that the increase in Chinese
immigration to the Southern Border is worthy of attention. We also
agree that the threats posed by the Chinese government are real and
should be explored. There are ways to do so without painting all API
immigrants and Asian Americans as possible threats.\8\ For this reason,
we ask that the Members of this subcommittee refrain from inflammatory
rhetoric that will only serve to expose our communities to risk and
weaken the United States as a whole.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Asian Americans Advancing Justice/AAJC, Advancing Justice--AAJC
Messaging Guidance, https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/publication/
advancing-justice-aajc-messaging-guidance (updated Jan. 19, 2024).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
______
Statement of the Niskanen Center
May 16, 2024
New data suggests political repression, slowing economy driving
irregular Chinese migration to United States
introduction
Despite intense interest from lawmakers and the media about Chinese
migration through the Southern Border, reliable data sources about
these migrants are limited.
One of the available sources is the annually updated Ecuadorian
Statistical Registry of International Entries and Exits. This database
offers an invaluable glimpse into the characteristics of Chinese
migrants entering Ecuador, the only mainland country in the Western
Hemisphere that offers visa-free travel to Chinese nationals.
Since most Chinese migrants enter the Americas via Ecuador, these
records can reasonably be used to draw inferences about irregular
Chinese migration. This assumption is supported by the net entry/exit
data, which show that Chinese nationals entered Ecuador 48,381 times in
2023 but only left 24,240 times. The resulting entry/exit deficit was
24,141--by far the highest number of any nationality.
Several other data points from the latest release, which summarizes
2023 international entries, further strengthen our knowledge of
irregular Chinese migration. For example, U.S. Customs and Border
Protection data has shown a sharp increase in encounters with Chinese
nationals in recent years. This increase is mirrored by the Ecuadorian
travel data, which indicates a record high of 23,859 Chinese nationals
traveled to Ecuador at least once in 2023, an increase of almost 235
percent compared to the previous 5-year average.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Some of the new data points, however, complicate our assumptions
about who these migrants are.
areas experiencing repression remain overrepresented
Our analysis of last year's data found that Hong Kong and Xinjiang,
which have experienced acute levels of social and political repression
by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in recent years, were
overrepresented as cities of origin logged in Ecuadorian entry data.
This finding is replicated in this year's data, with Hong Kong
having the second-highest rate of travel to Ecuador per million and
Xinjiang having the sixth.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Hong Kong can be explained to some extent by the region's
relatively high economic development, airport presence, and overall
population, making regular business travel and overrepresentation in
the entry data plausible.
However, two consecutive years of high proportional numbers from
Xinjiang defy easy explanation. High levels of travel from the
prefectures of Aksu and Altay heavily skew Xinjiang's numbers. Aksu is
80 percent Uyghur, while Altay is majority Kazakh--which could indicate
that the travelers from this region may not be Han Chinese or at least
have first-hand familiarity with the CCP's system of repression in this
region.
The most reasonable explanation for Xinjiang's high numbers are
that residents are especially motivated to escape the repressive CCP
security apparatus in the region.
However, the numbers from this data set need to be stronger to
indicate that persecution is a necessary driver for irregular travel
from China to Ecuador. Only two provinces saw no travel to Ecuador in
2022 and 2023: Qinghai, which is only 51 percent Han Chinese, and the
Tibetan Autonomous Region, which is 86 percent ethnic Tibetan.
Both provinces have experienced large-scale human rights violations
but have yet to record the same levels of outbound travel as Xinjiang
and Hong Kong. This suggests that other factors outside of possible
social, religious, and political concerns are also significant in
determining whether a region has a high amount of irregular emigration.
declining northeastern regions also high
The provinces in China's ``rust belt'' in the northeast have
experienced a significant population decline in recent years, losing 30
percent of their population from 2010 to 2020.
In this region, despite their plummeting populations, Heilongjiang,
Jilin, and Liaoning are all in the top third of origin regions among
Chinese travelers to Ecuador when adjusted for population, as indicated
in this table by an asterisk.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2023 Rate
of Travel
to
Region Ecuador
per
Million
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shanghai Municipality........................................ 274
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region...................... 257
Beijing Municipality......................................... 161
Heilongjiang Province*....................................... 123
Fujian Province.............................................. 28
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region............................ 24
Macau Special Administrative Region.......................... 19
Jilin Province*.............................................. 19
Hubei Province............................................... 11
Shaanxi Province............................................. 11
Liaoning Province*........................................... 9
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Author's tabulation of data from Instituto Nacional de
Estadistica y Censos, Registro Estadistico de Entradas y Salidas 2023.
These regional reflections that China's intensifying political
persecution and a slowing economy likely contribute to irregular
migration are supported by the broader Chinese demographic profile
drawn from the Ecuadorian travel data.
most travelers male, middle class, under 40
Chinese migrants encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border are often
ominously referred to as ``military-aged males.''
This data corroborates the fact that the migrants are largely young
and male. In 2023, 71 percent of Chinese entrants to Ecuador were male,
and 55 percent were between 15 and 39 years of age. Three factors
almost certainly explain these demographics, none indicating a national
security risk.
First, due to the one-child policy, China has a significant gender
imbalance that has left many men struggling to find women they could
marry. The pressure created by this imbalance has already created a
market for trafficking within China, and it is reasonable to assume
that young Chinese men could be motivated to undertake the journey if
they believe it will make it easier to find a spouse.
Second, social media has made the otherwise logistically daunting
journey far more manageable and appealing, and young people are more
likely to feel comfortable using social media to navigate the journey.
Finally, middle-class young men in China are the demographic most
likely to have the means and capability to organize and complete the
expensive and grueling route to the United States via Ecuador.
Occupational data from entrants to Ecuador corroborate this
explanation: Almost 80 percent were either high- or middle-skilled
professionals, while less than 1 percent (and only 2 in total) listed
``military'' as their field of work.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
conclusion
There is no singular characteristic that explains why increasing
numbers of asylum seekers from China are presenting themselves at the
Southern Border. Stifling political repression, a slowing Chinese
economy, the emergence of social media as a conduit for irregular
travel, and a perceived limited window of opportunity are all mutually-
compounding factors that together make the record 24,376 encounters
with Chinese nationals recorded by U.S. CBP in fiscal year 2024 to date
easier to comprehend.
One popular explanation favored by some commentators is that these
Chinese migrants are spies. As we have explained before, this
interpretation is highly dubious.
American policy makers interested in effectively rolling back the
CCP should instead reject their assumption that any ethnic Chinese
person owes them fealty and aggressively promote practical, bipartisan
solutions that protect anti-communist dissidents and advance American
Democracy as an alternative worldview.
Olivia Enos at the Hudson Institute has convincingly made the case
for stepping up enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act,
the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, and the Global Magnitsky Act to
target CCP human rights violations.
At the level of immigration policy, the United States should better
enable Chinese dissidents to access our refugee system. This can be
done by passing the Uyghur Human Rights Protection Act and the Hong
Kong Safe Harbor Act, which would allow dissidents from these areas to
enjoy Priority Two (P-2) processing in the refugee resettlement system,
allowing them to enter the United States refugee program without a
referral from the UNHCR, an embassy, or an NGO.
Despite their authoritarian structure, the CCP does not control the
narrative over irregular Chinese migration to the United States.
Whether the United States decides to shape this narrative before it
shapes us in the eyes of people seeking freedom in China, East Asia,
and the world is up to us.
[all]