On November 16, 2024, the Department of Homeland Security “deported a large number of undocumented Chinese migrants back to their home country,” according to Newsweek.
Deporting large numbers seems a good thing. What is a “large number”? you ask.
DHS won’t give the total outright but offers a clue. Its November 18 statement says: “On November 16, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, through U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, conducted a third large-frame charter removal flight in less than six months.”
One and one
DHS indicates one plane and one flight.
If a Boeing 747 is considered “large-frame,” and if it were packed with Chinese, the total number of passengers would not exceed 404. For Newsweek, then, 404 (or less) could be their “large number.”
But here are a couple of larger numbers. “This fiscal year, nearly 56,000 unauthorized Chinese migrants have entered the U.S., according to Customs and Border Protection. That already tops last year’s record of 52,700. By comparison, ICE said it managed to deport just 288 unauthorized Chinese migrants last year.”
Here’s another large number. Jon Feere, formerly with ICE, says: “We have tens of thousands of fully removable criminal aliens that could be deported to China immediately if the country was cooperative.” He refers to criminal criminals, not immigration offenders, and to Beijing’s “recalcitrance” in taking illegals back.
Yet another large number. Foreign Policy reports: “About 100,000 Chinese migrants living in the United States were subjected to final orders of removal as of November 2023, the New York Times reported at the time.”
Note final orders of removal for 100,000 in the year when “ICE said it managed to deport just 288 unauthorized Chinese migrants.”
The November flight of no more than 404 passengers triggered some boasting in Washington. “DHS is enforcing U.S. immigration laws and delivering tough consequences for those who enter unlawfully or without authorization,” said DHS.
Framing
The phrase “tough consequences” stands out in a context where not even a minimal effort has been mounted. Since DHS referred to the November expulsion as the “third large-frame charter removal flight in less than six months,” let’s run some totals.
The first “large-frame” return happened in June 2024 and expelled 116. (Foreign Policy, by the way, numbered the June cohort as “hundreds.”) Another flight in October took out 131 illegals. And according to The Epoch Times, our Boeing 747 in November actually carried off many fewer than 404: just 109. So Newsweek’s “large number” was 109, a passenger total actually unworthy of a “large-frame” aircraft.
So the three “large-frame” airlifts carried off 356 souls over six months. But we can give DHS a few bonus points for people carried off this March. Associated Press reported that they were in a Gulfstream V aircraft, which “typically has a seating capacity of 14.”
In the November 18 press release quoted above in which DHS boasted about enforcing immigration law, the agency also made this peculiar claim: “This removal flight is yet another example of the Department’s ongoing cooperation with the PRC and other international partners to reduce and deter irregular migration through enforcement of immigration law.”
It is the opposite. It is an example of the ongoing lack of cooperation between Beijing and Washington that tens of thousands of ready-to-fly Chinese criminals cannot be deported, that 100,000 plus illegals have been served final orders of removal but stay put.
The bureaucratic barriers to repatriation are ingenious. “For undocumented Chinese migrants to be deported from the United States, they need valid travel documents, such as a current passport, which many migrants may not keep out of fear of deportation,” observes Foreign Policy. “The Chinese government has also cited the time-consuming need to verify the citizenship of these migrants as another reason for the delay.”
Zouxian and runxue
Who, exactly, are these people?
“Tens of thousands of Chinese nationals have joined the zouxian (‘walk the route’) movement to leave the country, according to interviews with the migrants…. For the leaders in Beijing, the optics of tens of thousands of people leaving has been embarrassing. At the height of COVID-19 lockdowns in China, internet searches about runxue, which roughly translates to ‘the art of running away,’ skyrocketed on social media. The zouxian movement is part of that trend, as people have resorted to increasingly desperate measures to leave the country.”
Many of the illegal Chinese here may be deserving asylum seekers. And it is “not entirely clear what could happen to these deportees once they are returned to China, but media reports suggested that they could be subject to fines, detention, exit bans, and the confiscation of their passports.”
For the deserving asylum seekers, the Republic of China on Taiwan should be an option if the U.S. can work out a deal. But the ROC has no asylum law; all is ad hockery. Meanwhile, the U.S. will see more and more “zouxian.” Better find a policy better than useless removal orders. □
James Roth works for a major defense contractor in Virginia.
