Republican legislators warn Congress of ‘unequivocal threat’ posed by the spike in arrivals of illegal Chinese immigrants

The explosion of arrivals of illegal Chinese immigrants since Joe Biden came to power poses "an unequivocal threat to our national security." These were the words of Republican Rep. Daniel Bishop, chairman of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Oversight, Investigation and Accountability Subcommittee, who this past week began an exclusive hearing on this phenomenon in which he accused Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of being behind this trend.

Military-age men trying to enter undetected

The main reasons for concern of conservative legislators are found in the profile of the Chinese nationals apprehended at the border, who are overwhelmingly men of military age crossing the border alone, and the fact that many of them were detained by Border Patrol between entry ports trying to pass undetected. According to Bishop, many of them pay up to $60,000 to smugglers to help them cross the border.

According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics, between October 2023 and April of this year, 48,501 Chinese citizens have entered the country, of which 41,195 are unaccompanied adults. In his opening speech to the hearing, Bishop especially highlighted the arrivals across the southern border, focusing on the brutal turn experienced during the last two years and highlighting that so far this fiscal year in this area there have already been registered more meetings (27,700) than in the entire last year (24,314).

In total, there are just 4,000 fewer than those who entered during the entire fiscal year 2023 (52,700, of which 45,769 were single adults). In 2022 , 27,756 arrived, while in 2021, the first year under Biden, 23,172 adults people arrived of the 23,471 Chinese nationals who crossed the border in total. These figures contrast with the 1,077 citizens of this nationality who were arrested in 2018 or the 1,282 in 2020.

Biden administration prevents ‘serious investigation’

For Bishop, "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.”

Furthermore, the Republican pointed out that the protocol that the Biden administration has imposed on Border Patrol agents prevents "a serious investigation," limiting itself to the formulation of a series of generic questions:

Lack of collaboration from China to investigate

Along with the lack of collaboration from China for background checks, this creates a dangerous situation for the country, according to Bishop: "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."

Furthermore, the arrival of all these people is increasing another of the great national problems: drug trafficking. “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 two 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," said Bishop.

‘Transnational criminal organizations and the CCP see our open border as an opportunity’

The veteran congressman regretted that none of this had been done to the Biden Administration implement "common sense measures to secure our border in the face of such obvious threats to our homeland," but insists that the "catch and release" policy is encouraging the mass arrival of illegal immigrants and potential dangers to the country.