By Ira Mehlman
FAIR
During the first week of May alone, at least 1,026 illegal aliens from China were reportedly encountered at our borders – nearly all of them near San Diego. In the context of the larger border crisis in which more than 3 million illegal aliens have been encountered for the second consecutive fiscal year, 1,026 may not seem like much. But the crisis America faces is not just the sheer volume of illegal immigration; it is the inherent danger created when aliens from adversarial nations flood our border.
In all of FY 2021, there were 342 encounters of illegal migrants from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) at our southern border – a figure that was eclipsed in just two days at the start of May. At the midway point of the current fiscal year, there have been 24,200 PRC nationals encountered at the border. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing how many PRC nationals are among the approximately 2 million ‘gotaways’ who entered the country illegally since President Biden took office.
All illegal immigration erodes the fraying fabric of a nation that prides itself on being rooted in the rule of law. But illegal immigration from adversarial countries to the U.S. poses additional risks. China has been waging a long-term campaign aimed at weakening the United States and supplanting it as the world’s preeminent economic and military power. It is a hostile “long game” strategy that is acknowledged by scholars on the moderate left, like the Brookings Institution, and moderate right, most prominently by Peter Schweizer. Thus, when there is a dramatic spike in illegal entries of migrants from a country like China, it should be cause for concern.
The most obvious problem is that we don’t have enough information to properly identify and vet these aliens illegally crossing the border, or to know their purpose. Many of the Chinese nationals encountered at the border – like citizens of countless other countries – may simply be taking advantage of the Biden administration’s de facto open-borders policies to seek better economic opportunity and freedom from Beijing’s repressive regime. Others may be arriving here for more nefarious purposes on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). These activities include military and industrial espionage, smuggling and distribution of lethal narcotics (including fentanyl), or fomenting civil unrest in the United States.
Like just about every other threat posed by our unsecured borders and the wholesale release of largely unvetted foreign nationals who arrive here illegally, the Biden administration does not seem to be acting in any meaningful way to defend against the very real possibility that the CCP can and will exploit these vulnerabilities. In addition to the exponential increase in Chinese illegal aliens arriving at our borders, deportations of PRC nationals have slowed to a trickle. In response to then-Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022, the CCP announced that it was “Suspending China-U.S. cooperation on the repatriation of illegal immigrants.”
The Executive Branch has one key tool at its disposal to require China to take back its foreign nationals. Section 243(d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act states that, “On being notified by the Attorney General that the government of a foreign country denies or unreasonably delays accepting an alien who is a citizen, subject, national, or resident of that country after the Attorney General asks whether the government will accept the alien under this section, the Secretary of State shall order consular officers in that foreign country to discontinue granting immigrant visas or nonimmigrant visas, or both, to citizens, subjects, nationals, and residents of that country until the Attorney General notifies the Secretary that the country has accepted the alien.” Rather than invoking Section 243(d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, however, the Biden administration has meekly accepted the CCP’s recalcitrance. While the Trump administration used 243(d) authority successfully to require cooperation, Biden’s cabinet officials have refused to fulfill their obligations under this provision of the law.
Indeed, instead of taking decisive action, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas delicately broached the matter in February with his Chinese counterpart, Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong, when the two met in Vienna. Mayorkas told NBC News, “We have been working with the People’s Republic of China to actually receive individuals whom we have determined are not eligible to remain in the United States,” a statement that seems to indicate that the administration is not prepared to exert too much pressure on the CCP. Not to be outmatched in the game of meaningless diplomatic niceties, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has stated that it is “willing to maintain dialogue and cooperation in the area of immigration enforcement with the U.S.”
The results speak for themselves. As the influx of Chinese illegal aliens across our borders has skyrocketed, Secretary Mayorkas told Congress in April that his “engagement” with the Chinese government has yielded one deportation flight that took place in March. That singular flight of Chinese deportees was a Gulfstream V jet with a seating capacity of 14.
In the context of the PRC’s increasing aggression against the United States on numerous fronts, the surge in Chinese migrants infiltrating our country should be every bit as alarming as the growing number of people on the terror watchlist who are breaching our borders. What is happening should demand an urgent response that begins with securing our borders and suspension of visas if China refuses repatriation of illegal aliens. Unfortunately, under the current administration, none of those steps to safeguard our security and national interests are likely to happen.
