The number of migrants arriving at the southern border is unprecedented. Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded two and a half million instances of detaining or turning away people attempting to cross into the United States from Mexico. So what's the fastest growing group among them? Chinese migrants.
Yes, you heard that right, Chinese. We saw large groups, including many from the middle class, come through a four-foot gap at the end of a border fence 60 miles east of San Diego. The illegal entryway is a new route for those hoping to live in America. The story will continue in a moment.
Just after sunrise, we saw the first group of migrants make their way from Mexico through a gap between the 30-foot steel border fence and rocks. ducking under a bit of razor wire and into the United States. We were surprised to see the number of people coming through from China, nearly 7,000 miles away. Careful, watch.
Our cameras and at one point this armed border patrol agent standing 25 feet away did not deter them. So how old are you? I'm 20 years old.
This man, a college graduate, told us he hoped to find work in Los Angeles. He said his trip from China took 40 days. What countries did you go through?
Thailand, Morocco, Ecuador. Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua. Jeez.
Thirty minutes later, a smuggler's SUV raced along the border fence and dropped another group at the same spot. And 30 minutes after that, another group. Over four days, we witnessed nearly 600 migrants, adults and children, pass through this hole and onto U.S. soil unchecked. We saw people from India, Vietnam and Afghanistan. Many of the Chinese migrants who came through will end up asking for political asylum.
Did you travel by yourself or with family or friends? No, just me. Just you? Yeah.
The Gap is a global destination. littered with travel documents from around the world. With the help of a translator, we learned a little about the Chinese migrants coming through.
Teaching? You were a teacher? Yeah.
Oh my goodness. We also met a banker and small business owners. Some of the migrants made a grueling journey through Central America with dusty backpacks. But we noticed middle-class migrants from China arriving with rolling bags.
They told us they took flights all the way to Mexico. Some flew from China to Ecuador because it doesn't require a visa for Chinese nationals, then took flights to Tijuana, Mexico. The migrants told us they connected with smugglers, or what they call snakeheads, in Tijuana.
And they each paid them about $400 for the hour-long drive that ended here at the Gap. Why did you decide to come to the United States? Why did I leave China? Why did I come to the U.S.? It's hard to live there.
It's hard to find jobs. What did you do? Did you work in China? Yes.
She said it was, and that she sold her house to cover the $14,000 cost of her trip to the U.S. Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 37,000 Chinese citizens were apprehended crossing illegally from Mexico into the U.S.
That's 50 times more than two years earlier. Many of the migrants told us they made the journey to escape China's increasingly repressed... ...oppressive political climate and sluggish economy. This 37-year-old woman said China's COVID lockdown destroyed her childcare business. She left her two young children with family at home.
And why did you decide to come to the United States? I decided to come to the United States. Because there are many reasons.
Many reasons. For work or... For work or what? Not entirely for work.
Not entirely? Okay, what reasons? What other reasons?
Anything you want to say. Okay. Freedom.
Freedom. We wondered how all of these migrants knew about this particular entryway into California. The answer was in their hands. How do you know about that?
Oh, TikTok. Oh, you learned on TikTok. TikTok is a social media platform created in China.
The post we found had step-by-step instructions for hiring smugglers and detailed directions to that hole we visited. We were struck by just how orderly and routine it all seemed. The migrants walked about a half mile down a dirt road and waited in line for U.S. Border Patrol to arrive so they could surrender. How much property do you have here?
The land they're waiting on is owned by 75-year-old Jerry Schuster, a retiree. The whole world seems to know there's a way in and it's on your property. They're all doing this.
They're all doing this. When they come over here, they come with the suitcases. They come...
prepared with the computers just like they got off a Norwegian cruise ship yesterday. SHARMINI PERIES, Schuster owns 17 acres just north of the border fence and a quarter mile outside of Yakumba Hot Springs, California, population 540. You're an immigrant yourself. Yes.
Where did you come from? I come from Yugoslavia. And I left Yugoslavia.
I went to Austria. I stayed there eight months. And I knock when there's door. I didn't bust the door down to come over here.
You came through the front door? I came through the front door. And what do you think about this?
They don't care. They come through the hall like they come into their own country over here. And nobody do nothing about it. Schuster says it all started in May.
He went to investigate some smoke coming from his property and found migrants burning trees to stay warm. Today, his property looks like a messy moonscape, littered with the trash and tents migrants have left behind. Have you ever just yelled, get out of here? Well, they say I, that was like four months ago, there was eight guys started knocking my trees and started burning my... My trees on the other side.
Uh-huh. So I told them, please don't do that. Please don't.
They start surrounding me. I went home and I got my gun and I shoot the night they arrest me. They arrested you?
Yeah, they arrest me. On your property? Yeah, on my property.
Just because I asked them not to. Burn the trees not to knock the fences and they arrested me. They put me in a police car and just protected my own land. Schuster wasn't charged, but his gun was confiscated. If you had to guess, how many...
How many migrants do you think you've seen come through here? Maybe 3,000 a week. 3,000 a week?
I would say that, yes. Because this is an ongoing deal. About two hours after this. these migrants arrived, we saw the Border Patrol pull up, broadcasting recorded instructions in Mandarin. The migrants were driven to a detention facility near San Diego, where they are given background checks.
Some are interviewed. Typically within 72 hours, they are released into the United States and can begin the process of filing an asylum claim. Jacqueline Arellano has volunteered to help the migrants.
volunteered on the border for eight years, offering humanitarian aid to migrants. So I'm a native Spanish speaker. I have been able to rely on being bilingual in doing this work for the duration that I have been doing it. And in this past year, I mean, there's been times that I've come to the sites and not spoken to a single Spanish speaker. She relies on translation apps to communicate with Chinese migrants.
These people want to be picked up by Border Patrol. Why isn't this happening at a port of entry? That would definitely be the ideal situation and people would much prefer to do so.
It would definitely be much safer and more efficient. Unfortunately, there are barriers to people being able to seek asylum at a port of entry. One barrier is the phone app called CBP1. Asylum seekers are supposed to use the app to make an appointment to enter the U.S. through a legal border crossing.
As we saw last spring in Juarez, Mexico, the system is glitchy. Oh yeah, and it gets stuck, right? One opportunity at 9 o'clock, no more. Volunteers who work with migrants told us there's still a three to four month wait to secure an appointment at a border crossing. So is this a shortcut?
It's really like the only one that they have. I don't even know that they would consider it a shortcut. For years, millions of Chinese entered the U.S. with a visa that allowed them to visit, work, or study.
But in the last few years, those visas have been increasingly difficult to secure as tensions between the two countries have grown. In 2016, the U.S. granted 2.2 million temporary visas to Chinese nationals. In 2022...
It was just 160,000. So a lot of these folks may have come on... Tammy Lin is an immigration attorney and has worked with clients from China for nearly two decades.
If someone's not granted asylum here, will China then say, OK, yes, we'll take them back? I haven't seen that happen, really. I think even back to 2008, a lot of the Chinese nationals that had failed asylum cases weren't able to get passports. to be put on the plane to be sent back, so we can't send you back. Based on our review of data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there are at least 36,000 Chinese who have been ordered by U.S. courts to leave the country.
But China is notorious for not taking back its citizens, and the U.S. can't force China to accept them. So then what happens if they have a failed claim but they can't go back to China? That's a varied question. They're stuck in this limbo. According to the Department of Justice, last year, 55% of Chinese migrants were granted asylum, compared to 14% for every other nationality.
With the odds in their favor and a phone to guide them, there's little to discourage more Chinese migrants from coming through the gap near Jerry Schuster's place. Have you said to anybody, hey, there's this giant hole, they're coming through, how about patching that up? They know that thing is there.
And we've all been telling them, hey, when this thing going to quit over here? You got to call Washington, D.C., that's what they say. So we did.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection told us their agents don't have authority to stop people from coming through gaps like this one and can only arrest them after they've entered illegally. As for closing that gap, they said it is on their priority list, but would require money from Congress. What do some migrants do after being released by Border Patrol?
They call an Uber and they're gone. At 60minutesovertime.com