US expels more than 100 Chinese migrants in rare mass deportation
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The US has sent back 116 Chinese migrants in the first such “large charter flight” in five years, the Department of Homeland Security has said.
“We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.
The flight, which happened over the weekend, comes amid intense political debate ahead of the US presidential election over the issue of Chinese immigration.
The department said it was working with China to “reduce and deter irregular migration and to disrupt illicit human smuggling through expanded law enforcement efforts”. It did not respond to questions about how long the migrants had been in the US.
The department said it was working with China on more removal flights in the future but did not give a timeline for when the next one would happen.
In recent years, the US has had a difficult time returning Chinese nationals who do not have the right to stay in America because China has resisted taking them back. Last year, the US saw a surge in the number of Chinese immigrants entering the country illegally from Mexico.
US border officials arrested more than 37,000 Chinese nationals on the southern border in 2023, 10 times the number during the previous year.
Chinese migration has increasingly become a rallying cry for Republicans and former president Donald Trump who have raised suspicions about why Chinese migrants are coming to the US.
