US deports illegal Chinese migrants on charter removal flight

The DHS said it would continue to work with Beijing on additional removal flights.

Chinese nationals have become the fastest growing group to cross illegally into the US from the southern border. In the first five months of 2024, US officials apprehended 16,270 Chinese nationals along the US-Mexico border, adding to a total of over 50,000 since China lifted its strict zero-Covid controls in December 2022.

Before Tuesday’s announcement, the DHS had confirmed only one other flight carrying deportees to China, with Mayorkas telling a US House of Representatives committee in April that it was the first “in a number of years”. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement data shows that 288 Chinese nationals were deported in the 2023 fiscal year.

Amid election year politics, the administration of US President Joe Biden has steadily increased efforts to crack down on illegal entry along the southern border. In June, Biden signed an executive order that would suspend the processing of most asylum claims once the weekly average of unauthorised crossings exceeds 2,500.

As a result of that order, apprehensions along the border have decreased by 40 per cent and over 120 international repatriation flights to more than 20 countries have been conducted, the DHS said on Tuesday.