DHS deports Chinese immigrants in first major flight since 2018

The Department of Homeland Security reported that it conducted a flight to deport Chinese nationals back to their country. It was the first large charter flight since 2018 and was conducted in close coordination with China's National Immigration Administration.

"We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States. People should not believe the lies of smugglers," said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

In that sense, the security secretary explained that the flight occurred due to the Democratic Administration's talks with the Chinese regime to address illegal immigration and human trafficking.

"DHS regularly engages counterparts throughout the hemisphere and around the world to accept repatriations of nationals without a lawful basis to remain in the United States and take other steps to reduce irregular migration, promote safe, lawful, and orderly pathways, and hold transnational criminal networks accountable for abusing our lawful trade and travel systems and the smuggling and exploitation of vulnerable people," the Department of Homeland Security noted.

More and more Chinese nationals are entering the United States illegally. The growth of this group is such that it has become the nationality from which illegal entries have increased the most over the past three years, according to a report released in February. According to Border Patrol data, the number of encounters with Chinese nationals at the country's southern border jumped from 450 in 2021 to more than 24,300 in all of 2023.