Comments by "Pretty Purple" (@prettypurple7175) on "BBC News 中文"
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Those who choose that difficult path over the southern border now may come from different walks of life, but see their “livelihood and various interests being violated” in China, according to Ma Ju, a Chinese-Muslim community leader who won asylum in the US in 2019.
He would know – he’s running a shelter in New York City for new arrivals from China, largely those who say they are fleeing political or religious oppression. For many, it takes more than a year for a work permit in the US, he says, leaving them stuck in under-the-table jobs without labor protections as they wait to learn if they can stay.
But within the wait, there’s hope.
“Regardless of whether they’re here for economic reasons or other things, it’s for dignity – something they’ve never had in their home country,” Ma said.
With contributions from CNN’s Norma Galeana reporting from Los Angeles and Abel Alvarado and Evelio Contreras reporting from Ecuador, Colombia and Panama.
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Now, the southern border has emerged as a better-known route amid a broader increase in the number of people from around the world crossing there since the pandemic ended.
Those who’ve entered illegally on that route must typically pass an initial screening in order to stay in the US and apply for asylum, though different migrants may face different circumstances amid an overwhelmed system.
Congress is expected to act to update immigration rules for the border in the coming days, which could change and narrow existing rules, experts say.
Within the overall increase in such crossings, the rising number of Chinese nationals who are willing to take the treacherous route – even at a time of sharp political tensions between the US and China – appears as a new and telling trend.
Beijing has condemned the border crossings, with its Foreign Ministry telling CNN in a statement that it “opposes and resolutely cracks down on any form of illegal immigration activities, and is willing to actively engage in international cooperation on this matter.”
The ‘walking route’
For people like Zheng, even beginning the journey comes with a high price.
Those who rely on gathering information themselves and making their own way up through South and Central America, will spend at least $5,000 – more than a third of a Chinese factory worker’s average annual salary.
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People escaping famine in mainland China were detained by Hong Kong police and British troops after crossing the border into the city in May 1962.
Chinese emigration to the US took off after the opening of China’s economy in the early 1980s, a little more than a decade after restrictive US immigration policies were dropped. Then, the number of people from China gaining permanent residency – a pathway often linked to family ties, employment, and political asylum – started to climb significantly, US data shows.
As China’s economy boomed in the early 2000s, dynamics shifted: there were more opportunity for workers there, while wealthier Chinese had greater resources to immigrate or study in the US.
But the country has also seen an intensified crackdown on civil society – and any form of dissent – during the past decade under Xi, its most authoritarian leader in decades.
In that period, China also has increased its control over religion and has been accused by the United Nations’ highest human rights body of perpetuating serious abuses that could amount to crimes against humanity for the way it treats Muslim minorities, a charge Beijing denies.
View this interactive content on CNN.com
UN data shows the number of people from China seeking political asylum in the US and elsewhere around the world has sharply risen during Xi’s rule – climbing from nearly 25,000 in 2013 to more than 120,000 globally in the first six months of 2023.
Those who cross at the southern US border, who include not just single adults but families, are also typically seeking asylum, an immigration category for people escaping persecution. Previously, asylum seekers from China might apply after entering the US on a tourist visa, or via a different route that may not involve being detained at a border, immigration experts say.
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On a recent winter day, dozens of Chinese nationals waited in different makeshift camps scattered outside San Diego, California, just north of the Mexican border.

Evelio Contreras/CNN
A group of Chinese migrants gathered at a temporary camp near the US-Mexican border after illegally crossing into the US.
Bundled in hoodies and jackets, they huddled around fires as they, and others there, counted the time before US border control agents would take them away for processing – and what they hoped would be the start to their lives in America.
These arrivals are part of a staggering new trend. In the first 11 months of 2023, more than 31,000 Chinese citizens were picked up by law enforcement crossing illegally into the US from Mexico, government data shows – compared with an average of roughly 1,500 per year over the preceding decade.
Their numbers are still dwarfed by those from regional neighbors like Mexico, Venezuela, and Guatemala, and they are not alone in coming from other parts of the world. But the influx of people from China making that crossing spotlights the urgency many now feel to leave their native country, even in the midst of what leader Xi Jinping has claimed is a “national rejuvenation.”
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I wish I was never born … living feels so exhausting.”
Zheng Shiqing, migrant from China
He started factory work mixing glue for shoe boxes in his late teens, and later switched between jobs, including at an assembly line making smartphone parts for Apple. During the pandemic, he was locked down in another factory fabricating internet routers, unable to leave. After the lockdown ended, Zheng switched to another job, where he says his wages were never paid, even after he filed a formal complaint.
“There is no way out … unless your parents are officials or businesspeople. But if you are from the lower-class, even if you get married and have children, you will still follow the old path … it’s painful just thinking about it,” he said. “I wish I was never born … living feels so exhausting.”
Earlier this year, like thousands of other Chinese, Zheng decided to try “zou xian” or taking the “walking route” to America.
The phrase has become a euphemism for the perilous journey, as has “global travels” – one of the search terms people can key in to find online tutorials in Chinese for how to prepare, what to do at each leg and even what to say to immigration officials.
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‘Dire straits’
China’s Covid-19 controls, relaxed only a year ago, hit blue collar workers in cities and residents in rural areas hard.
And now the economy continues to struggle under a property market crisis, high local government debt and the effects of a government crack-down on the once-booming private sector, all of which has cost jobs.

China’s economy had a miserable year. 2024 might be even worse
After urban youth unemployment hit record levels last year, the government stopped publishing data for the metric altogether. The Communist Party pledged to do more to bolster the economy — and quash bad news about it.
“It’s striking that so many are making this perilous journey to South America and up to the US when politically the country is very stable,” said Victor Shih, director of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California San Diego, pointing to a contrast with periods of emigration from China amid political turmoil.
“It suggests that a significant segment of the population is in economic dire straits.”
Hundreds of thousands fled the mainland for Hong Kong in the mid-20th Century amid civil war and, later, political turmoil and famine under the policies of Communist China’s founder Mao Zedong.

AP
People escaping famine in mainland China were detained by Hong Kong police and British troops after crossing the border into the city in May 1962.
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Zheng Shiqing takes a bus from Quito to Tulcan on Ecuador's Colombian border.
Images shared with CNN by Zheng and others from China show the perils of that miles-long jungle stretch. There, guided groups typically travel through dense rainforest and along rocky riverbanks, at times clambering over steep, slippery stretches – or gripping ropes to cross swiftly moving or deep river water.
In the final leg, clad in orange life jackets and seated in wooden boats, they follow a winding river to the next destination – temporary migrant camps in Panama, where they register, have a free meal and rest.
In Panama, authorities have resorted to busing people from these southern border camps to their northern ones - all in the dark of night, a Panamanian official told CNN. Then it’s on through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico – if they’re not stopped by police or thieves.
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