Single adults accounted for 87% of Chinese migrant encounters along the Southwest border this year. CBP data doesn’t indicate the sex of these migrants.
It’s no surprise to migration experts that single men of working age would be well-represented at the Southwest border, because adults traveling on their own are better able to endure the trek through the Darien Gap, the roadless stretch of jungle that connects Colombia and Panama.
“There’s really no significant threat of single military-age men coming to the United States,” said Ruiz Soto. “More single adults come because the numbers overall have increased.”
Migrants from China often start the journey in Ecuador, which didn’t require a visa until recently. Unlike Chinese citizens, Russians don’t need a visa to visit Mexico, saving thousands of miles on the way to the U.S.
The number of single Chinese migrants encountered by the Border Patrol in the four Southwest border states has quadrupled since Biden took office, from 8,926 in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2021, to 38,226 in the current fiscal year. Most came through California.
In Arizona, border agents reported 39 such encounters in 2021, 4,155 last year and 428 so far this year.
Word of the Darien Gap route began to spread in China as COVID-19 lockdowns left many people out of work and looking for opportunity elsewhere.
“You had deteriorating conditions in China, increasing authoritarianism, persecution of political dissidence and worse economic conditions,” Bier said.
The push factors driving Russians to seek a new life in the United States have been somewhat different.
Many military age men fled after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Encounters with Russians skyrocketed, quadrupling to 28,000 in 2022 along the Southwest border and topping 50,000 in 2023, before dropping to 16,000 this year, according to CBP data.
Rachel Wilson, a Tucson immigration lawyer who works with Russian and Ukrainian migrants, called the rhetoric about military infiltration “completely absurd” given the strict screening process for asylum seekers.
“There are men who don’t want to serve, who don’t want to fight Ukraine, who are politically opposed to it, and also some people who just don’t want to get killed in a war, and their families,” she said.
The narrative about a military invasion also angers James Holeman, who leads the Arizona-based Battalion Search and Rescue — volunteers who search remote areas for migrants in distress or who died after crossing the border.
While they mostly find people from Latin America, he recalled a group of 200 asylum seekers from Africa and India badly in need of water miles from a port of entry.
“A majority of people are fleeing for their lives,” he said. “Migration is an act of desperation.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-23 05:00:00
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