The Biden administration repatriated more than 500 Chinese nationals last year, laying the groundwork for systematic deportations across the Pacific.
On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it had conducted a large-scale deportation flight to China. This is the fifth such flight the ministry has chartered since June, when mass transit flights resumed after a lull that began in 2018.
“The Chinese nationals deported to the People's Republic of China (PRC) this week join hundreds of others who have been deported because they have no legal basis to remain in the United States. “This is the fourth such deportation flight to China,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.
Cooperation on deportation has long been a difficult issue between China and the United States.
Tensions between the two superpowers have subsided over a range of issues, including trade and Taiwan, making cooperation on illegal immigration, an issue in which the two countries share common interests, at times difficult.
For the United States, where border encounters are a core political responsibility, the ability to quickly remove foreign nationals and the ability to publicize that removal is of paramount importance.
China is interested in reducing immigration. retain a young workforceand to protect its global image as an economic power.
But the two countries have at times been at odds over how to address the common goal of reducing irregular migration.
In 2020, the United States designated 13 countries, including China, as “recalcitrant countries” that refuse to bring back their citizens at the pace required by the Department of Homeland Security.
The United States has a relatively comprehensive toolbox for coaxing recalcitrant countries to cooperate in removal efforts, including visa restrictions that would be difficult for smaller countries on the list, such as Cuba.
Although Chinese nationals make up a relatively small portion of the illegal immigrants encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border, these sanctions are less effective in a country the size of China.
However, encounters with Chinese people increased significantly from 2022 to 2024.
From October 2021 to September 2022, DHS personnel encountered 2,176 Chinese nationals at the Southwest border. In fiscal year 2023, that number jumped to 24,314, and in fiscal year 2024, authorities recorded 38,246 such encounters.
Last July, Congressman Chip Roy (R-Texas) republican letterThe Mallorcans demanded an explanation for the high number of arrivals and the relatively low number of departures at the time.
DHS officials said the biggest obstacle to streamlining flights to China was bureaucratic difficulties in obtaining identification and travel documents for Chinese nationals to enter the country.
Ten years ago, Obama administration officialsI encountered a similar problemUnder then-Secretary Jeh Johnson.
Under the Mayorkas administration, Department of Homeland Security officials and their Chinese counterparts sought to establish standard operating procedures for the issuance of travel documents, both for charter flights and for potential deportations on commercial flights. An agreement was quickly reached to speed up the process.
And Homeland Security officials are taking a victory lap by linking deportation flights to fewer encounters at the Southwest border. The number of contacts with Chinese nationals plummeted from a high of 5,980 in December 2023 to 895 in November last year, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
“This is one element of our country's multi-pronged approach to border security, which has resulted in lower border crossing levels than in 2019. Our multi-pronged approach includes “Developing safe and legal channels for people to access humanitarian relief under our laws,'' Mayorkas said.
These number reductions and China's air cooperation come as President-elect Trump is expected to take office and place renewed emphasis on enforcing U.S. immigration policy.
International cooperation on U.S. deportations could also become more important as lawmakers push for tougher immigration laws such as the Laken-Riley Act. The law would allow states to sue the federal government to stop issuing visas to rebellious countries, with far more severe consequences. The strongest visa sanctions.
But immigration advocates say deportations are not necessarily the main factor behind the decline in immigration from China.
The number of border encounters for all nationalities has fallen across the board, from a high of 301,981 in December 2023 to 94,190 in November last year.
“It's hard to believe that these flights are making such a dramatic difference, especially for China,” said Tom Cartwright, an advocate with Witness at the Border, which tracks DHS removal flights. said.
Countries both recalcitrant and cooperative are seeing fewer encounters at their borders, with or without deportation flights, Cartwright said.
Cartwright compared the number of encounters with Chinese nationals in October and November 2023 to the same months in 2024 and found that despite the resumption of deportation flights, the number of encounters with Chinese nationals decreased by 76 per cent. I discovered that
During the same period, contacts with Guatemalan citizens decreased by 73%, even though the number of flights decreased by 36%. The encounter rate with Nicaraguan nationals has decreased by 90% with almost the same number of flights (6 flights from October to November 2023 and 5 flights in 2024), and the encounter rate with Honduran nationals has decreased by 79% despite a 42% decrease in flights. decreased.
“Honestly, I think there are a lot of other factors,” Cartwright said.
