A sharp rise in the number of Chinese nationals illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border during the Biden administration has triggered warnings from border security experts, who call it a growing “national security concern.”
On June 3, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 122 Chinese nationals, many of whom had been convicted of serious crimes including murder, drug trafficking, and human smuggling. The group was returned to China aboard a “high-risk charter flight,” according to ICE officials.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice (DOJ) this week announced charges against seven Chinese nationals accused of operating a multimillion-dollar marijuana trafficking ring. Prosecutors say the suspects smuggled Chinese migrants across the southern border, forcing them to work in illegal grow houses across the northeastern U.S.
“This case pulls back the curtain on a sprawling criminal enterprise that exploited our immigration system and our communities for personal gain,” said U.S. Attorney Leah Foley.
“They turned quiet homes into criminal hubs and built a black-market operation on the backs of an illegal workforce.”
Illegal Crossings Skyrocket
According to the House Committee on Homeland Security, more than 24,000 Chinese nationals were apprehended in fiscal year 2024 alone. In March 2024, encounters of Chinese migrants increased by over 8,000% compared to the same month in 2021. The majority of these apprehensions occurred between official ports of entry, not at designated border crossings.
Lora Ries, Director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center and a former acting deputy chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, said the surge is alarming.
“The numbers rose rapidly during the Biden administration,” Ries told Fox News Digital. “Pre-Biden, we’d see about 1,000 Chinese nationals a month. That skyrocketed to 2,000–7,000 monthly, peaking at over 8,000 in December 2023.”
Ries warned that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may be using the migrant surge as a geopolitical strategy to undermine U.S. national security.
“The CCP has a history of employing unconventional tactics—sending fentanyl precursors to Mexico, spy balloons, buying U.S. farmland near military bases, and more,” Ries said. “We have to assume they exploited the open border during Biden’s term to send in operatives with malicious intent.”
Ongoing Concerns
The DOJ’s marijuana trafficking case is just one example of how immigration loopholes are being used by organized criminal networks, authorities say.
And with the geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China continuing to escalate, border officials and lawmakers alike are urging more scrutiny over who is entering the country—and why.
