Radio Free Asia (RFA) on Monday reported on a growing number of videos posted to China’s controversial TikTok platform that teach Chinese nationals how to sneak across the U.S. border from Mexico.
RFA said the videos are grouped together under hashtags like “walk the line” or “illegal immigration.” Much of the information presented in the videos appeared to be accurate, and some of them were created by people who claimed to have successfully slipped across the border at least once.
TikTok users are teaching Chinese citizens fleeing the country — known as the “run” movement — how to navigate a dangerous smuggling route through Latin America, and the bureaucratic intricacies of getting settled in the U.S.https://t.co/VCy40OlaTc
— Radio Free Asia (@RadioFreeAsia) May 2, 2023
Some of the videos included warnings about natural hazards, predatory gangs, and other menaces. The TikTok posters generally agreed that sneaking into the United States is fairly easy if those hazards can be avoided. They offered advice for gaming the American immigration system to obtain “political asylum” and cobbling together the documents needed for basic tasks like opening a bank account.
One video described by RFA reportedly guided viewers all the way from China to Central America, and then across Mexico to cross the U.S. border:
“If you do the whole trip DIY, you don’t need a huge amount of luggage, and nobody steals from you,” says another video posted by @run_away1688. “There are only four police fines, and the entire route is very low cost.”
“Step 1: Arrive in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, then buy a bus ticket — there are a lot of places you can buy them … the highway goes all the way to Guatemala,” the video explains. “When you get to the border, you won’t be allowed to cross, but someone will ask you when you get off the bus, if you’re headed to Guatemala.”
“They will guide you through the mountains,” it says, detailing a list of further bus trips and checkpoints on an itinerary that ends in Mexico.
The Biden administration has been struggling mightily to ignore the surge in Chinese nationals illegally crossing the southern border — and to deny they have anything to do with the surge of illicit, deadly fentanyl entering the United States.
Steven Cagen, an assistant director with ICE’s investigative arm, said on Wednesday that he sees no link between a rise in Chinese migrants crossing the US-Mexico border and illicit fentanyl entering the United States. W/ @michaelvmartina https://t.co/9MjNWmsPGb
— Ted Hesson (@tedhesson) March 15, 2023
After watching “hundreds” of Chinese migrants stream across the border, Reuters published a comprehensive report last week that found nearly all of them obtained tips for slipping into the United States from TikTok (or more accurately Douyin, the version of TikTok available to Chinese users) and other social media platforms.
“About half” of them claimed to be small business owners fleeing impending economic trouble in China, or the return of harsh lockdown policies if another pandemic erupts. A fair number of them said they were Christians fleeing the religious persecution of the Chinese Communist Party. As relations between China and the U.S. deteriorated and legitimate visa applications were denied during the pandemic, they turned to illegal immigration.
Douyin, the Chinese counterpart of TikTok, has been advising Chinese migrants on the irregular overland trek across Latin America to the United States.https://t.co/ATPIYVkwgr
— FAIR (@FAIRImmigration) April 29, 2023
Some Chinese migrants preferred to deal with professional smugglers instead of performing “do it yourself” illegal immigration. According to Reuters, Chinese social media efficiently weeded out predators and scam artists before settling on a few celebrity “guides” who command up to $1250 a head for smuggling adults into the U.S., or $700 for children.
A Chinese illegal immigrant told MSNBC in March that smugglers are adapting quickly to their upscale Chinese clients and have learned to charge them piecemeal for vital bits of information at every step of their journey from Central America to Texas or California.
“The new phenomenon is people are trying to make money. So they’re giving little bits of information out at a time, and if you want more information about a particular route, they’re gonna demand more and more money,” he said, possibly explaining why so many aspiring Chinese migrants are turning to social media and “do-it-yourself” ventures.
A group of migrants, mostly Venezuelans, prepare to start crossing the Darien Gap from Colombia into Panama hoping to reach the U.S., Saturday, October 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
Recent posts on Chinese illegal immigrant social media include maps of where U.S. Border Patrol agents might be waiting — along with advice to seek them out and surrender to them, rather than avoiding them, because Chinese migrants have a high probability of securing asylum in the United States.
One migrant followed by Reuters had the idea of holding up a sign that said “Democracy, Freedom” when he surrendered to the Border Patrol, a gesture whose effectiveness was somewhat undermined by the fact that he wrote it in Chinese.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported in April that Chinese asylum-seekers have exploded to over 116,000 per year from 15,362 in 2012, the year dictator Xi Jinping took power.
“In the first three months of this year, 3,855 Chinese migrants crossed the Darién Gap, the 60 miles or so of treacherous terrain connecting South and Central America. That compares with 2,005 for the full year in 2022, and just 376 Chinese total in the years from 2010 to 2021, according to Panama migration data,” the WSJ said.
A group of migrants, mostly Venezuelans, walk across the Darien Gap from Colombia into Panama hoping to reach the U.S. on Saturday, October 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
“Since the start of the government’s budget year in October through February, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have apprehended 4,271 Chinese nationals along the southwest border, 12 times the number in the same period a year earlier. Total arrests at the border during the period were 891,774,” the article noted.
RFA and Reuters were a little suspicious about the ubiquity of illegal migration information on Chinese social media, which is tightly controlled and heavily censored by the paranoid Communist regime; user-friendly hashtags for illegal immigration to the United States would not exist if the regime wanted to shut them down.
The Chinese embassy in Washington told Reuters the regime opposes illegal immigration, regarding it as “an international issue that requires cooperation between countries.” The embassy declined to answer questions about the religious persecution claims of some migrants.