Social Media Popularising A New Route Among Chinese Immigrants Seeking To Enter US

According to Panamanian immigration authorities, Chinese people were the fourth-highest nationality, after Venezuelans, Ecuadorians and Haitians, crossing the Darién Gap jungle during the first nine months of this year.

The US is seeing a big increase in Chinese immigrants seeking to escape an increasingly repressive political climate and bleak economic prospects. They have been arriving using a relatively new and perilous route through the Darién Gap, thanks in part to social media.

Social Media Easing Perilous Journeys To The US

Short video platforms and messaging apps provide not only on-the-ground video clips but also step-by-step guides, including tips on what to pack, how to survive the jungle, which hotels to stay at, how much to bribe police and what to do when facing US immigration officers.

Translation apps allow migrants to navigate through Central America on their own. The journey can cost up to tens of thousands of dollars, paid for with family savings or loans. It’s markedly different from the days when Chinese nationals paid smugglers and travelled in groups.

From January through September, the Border Patrol made 22,187 arrests of Chinese for crossing the border illegally from Mexico, nearly 13 times the same period in 2022. Arrests peaked at 4,010, up 70% from August to become the ninth highest nationality at the US border.

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Unemployment And Economy Blamed For Exodus

The popular route to the US is through Ecuador. Chinese immigrants join Latin Americans there to trek North through the once-impenetrable Darién Gap and across several Central American countries before reaching the US border.

China’s COVID-19 policies temporarily stemmed the exodus that rose dramatically in 2018 when President Xi amended the constitution to scrap the presidential term limit. Now emigration has resumed, amid high youth unemployment figures and an economy struggling to rebound.