U.S. Sees 1,000% Surge in Migrants from Afghanistan, China

By: Jennie Taer, Daily Caller News Foundation

Border Patrol has seen 1,000% increases in migrants coming from Afghanistan, China and other countries far from U.S. borders between fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2023.

The surges include migrants from Algeria, Djibouti, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Paraguay and Vietnam, outgoing Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz wrote on Twitter Friday. It has been challenging to deport such migrants, Ortiz said.

“While we work diligently to repatriate migrants from these countries, we still have challenges with countries’ governments to get working programs in place to repatriate all those we apprehended,” Ortiz said.

In fiscal year 2021, Border Patrol recorded 342 encounters with Chinese migrants crossing U.S. borders illegally, which surged to 1,987 in fiscal year 2022. In the first seven months of fiscal year 2023, Border Patrol has already made 9,753 encounters of Chinese migrants.

“Right now in China there’s extreme pessimism, especially among people in their 20s about the future of their country, so it’s understandable that they’re leaving and they’re trying to get into the United States. And, you know, these are people who are relatively middle class, so it shows you the problems in Chinese society are severe,” China expert Gordon Chang previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation of the surge in Chinese migrants.

Several migrants from Afghanistan traveling to the U.S. via Guatemala previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that they fled their homes because of the Taliban’s takeover after the withdrawal of American forces.

“My message for the government of USA, please open your doors for us and help us,” one emotional Afghan refugee told the DCNF in Guatemala. “We don’t have a country now. I don’t feel we have a country. When I am from Afghanistan, I feel like this too. I don’t have a country. We are the humans of this world. And we need the help of this world.”