U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 182 Chinese citizens who crossed illegally into the U.S. through a key sector of the southern border on Tuesday, Fox News has learned.
The Chinese nationals were caught after crossing into the San Diego Sector, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) source told Fox News, which has seen large numbers of Chinese migrants in recent months.
More than 22,000 Chinese nationals have been apprehended by the Border Patrol since Oct. 1.
CHINESE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ON PACE TO BREAK RECORDS AT US SOUTHERN BORDER
A Chinese migrant speaks to a border patrol officer before being processed after crossing the Rio Grande into the U.S. (Brandon Bell)
Fox News Digital has reached out to border authorities.
The number of Chinese citizens arrested after crossing illegally has dramatically increased in recent years from 342 in 2021 to 22,233 since Oct. 1, the beginning of the 2024 fiscal year.
Fiscal year 2022 saw 1,987 arrests and 24,125 were reported for fiscal year 2023.
The number of Chinese migrants being encountered in the San Diego Sector is exceeding that of Mexican citizens, according to CBP data. Since October, the number of Chinese migrants encountered by border authorities is second only to Colombia (28,000). Third is Mexican nationals with 18,000, followed by Brazil (8,700) and Ecuador (7,700).
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Some Chinese migrants have expressed support for President Biden, who has been criticized by Republicans for reversing Trump-era border policies, but others are indifferent.
One migrant who spoke with Fox News said he picked up tips on the arduous journey from Chinese social media apps. He said he collected information from online sources to learn how to make it to the U.S., including information about routes, border navigation and ways to dispose of information to avoid having your origin traced.
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Migrants in line in Jacumba, California. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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“No matter whether it is Trump or Biden, we just wanted to come to the United States,” he said. “I am not worried about my legal identity problem, because as long as we arrive in the United States, there will always be a way to solve the identity problem. We want to go to the United States mainly for our children and to give them a better future.”
Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw and Griff Jenkins contributed to this report.
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