Female migrant is intercepted at southern border while wearing ultra-expensive Canada Goose jacket and toting iPhone
- Asian woman lined up to surrender to border patrol alongside dozens of others
- Famously expensive jackets cost more than $1,100 - but knockoffs are far less
- Chinese migrant arrivals rose 7,000 per cent between 2021 and 2023
A migrant was spotted crossing the border wearing a Canada Goose jacket and carrying a recent model phone.
The woman, who appeared to have arrived from East Asia, crossed into the US at Jacumba, California, on Wednesday and was seen on news footage.
She was seen lining up alongside dozens of other migrants surrendering to border patrol agents to claim asylum in the US.
A Canada Goose parka like the one she was wearing cost at least $1,100 new, but can be bought secondhand online for as little as $300.
Knockoff copies that closely resemble the genuine article are also a fraction of the cost, especially if she bought it in East Asia before coming to the US.
A migrant was spotted crossing the border wearing a Canada Goose jacket and carrying a recent model phone
What kind of phone and how old it is was not clear from the footage that was posted to Twitter and viewed by millions.
'How is this real?' the person posting it asked.
Some commenters pointed out that middle class wealth wouldn't stop someone being persecuted and having to flee their home, especially if she was from China.
'You assume the reason she is fleeing her homeland is for financial reasons. But often the reason is more based on personal safety. Will the phone and jacket protect her from political persecution?' one wrote.
The woman, who appeared to have arrived from East Asia , crossed into the US at Jacumba, California, on Wednesday and was seen on news footage
Another wrote that he was a Jewish refugee who walked out of Russia with one suitcase after 12 years of protesting Putin's oppressive regime.
'I left with one suitcase but I had a Macbook and a photo camera (even if it was smashed by police on antiwar protest). But like how Germany denied me, your US would too,' he wrote.
Chinese migrants have in recent months started to outnumber those from many Latin American countries, particularly in California.
US Customs and Border Protection said it encountered 24,048 Chinese migrants at the US-Mexico border in fiscal year 2023, which ended in September — a 7,000 per cent jump on the 323 who came amid the pandemic-era lockdowns of 2021.
More Chinese nationals are encountered at the San Diego sector of the California-Mexico border nowadays than Mexicans, according to CBP.
Some 21,000 Chinese nationals have been encountered since the new financial year started in October, more than the 18,000 Mexicans and second only to some 28,000 migrants from Colombia.
Dozens of Chinese migrants were spotted lined up at the California border town of Jacumba on February 15, telling reporters shamelessly how they're here to 'take the money'.
More Chinese nationals are encountered at the San Diego sector of the California-Mexico border nowadays than Mexicans, according to CBP
Migrants rest at a makeshift camp as they await the possibility of being processed by the Border Patrol after crossing the Mexican border in an attempt to get asylum in the United States, in Jacumba, California
Most Chinese migrants seeking a new life in the US usually first fly into Ecuador, where they do not need a visa.
Then they pay smugglers to take them through the dangerous jungle between Colombia and Panama to the US, just like hundreds of thousands of other migrants from Central and South America.
Many of them pay Chinese 'snakehead' gangs who work with Mexican cartels and smuggling groups.
The 'snakeheads' have long operated along the border, but the sudden rise in demand has sent business through the roof, former intelligence officer Todd Bensman told DailyMail.com.
'Chinese smuggling has changed in recent years.
'Migrants can now take self-propelled trips to Mexico by following what they see online or learn in a chatroom, where they previously had to rely on Snakeheads.'
Migrant aid volunteer Samuel Schultz explained how migrants could stand outside one or two or three hotels in downtown Tijuana, and if they looked foreign, they would be approached on the streets.
After meeting Chinese smugglers in Tijuana, a metropolis of three million people, the Chinese pay for a ride to a remote area where the Chinese guide tells them where to cross.
The Chinese smugglers stay on the Mexican side, and know all the area with easy access to the US.
A Chinese migrant camp near Jacumba, California has signs showing Chinese asylum seekers where to turn themselves over to US Border Patrol agents
The high success rate of Chinese asylum claims is a long-standing trend, but it has come under the spotlight following a spike in crossings by Chinese migrants last year
It is thought the sudden spike in Chinese nationals heading to the US is part of an exodus from the country sparked by draconian Covid restrictions and the repressive regime of Xi Jinping.
The Chinese surge is part of a historic and overwhelming wave of migrants across the Southern Border of the country since 2021.
The Chinese arrivals have raised concern with elected officials about why the citizens for a US foe are coming here in increasing numbers.
Some have been found to have links with the CCP and its affiliated PLA, but border chiefs are concerned more could be slipping through their grasp.
A US Border Patrol chief warned that his agents are being over whelmed by the flood of Chinese migrants crossing the border and that they could be missing Communist spies.
Many Chinese newcomers say they are simply escaping poverty and China's tumbling economy, many paying thousands of dollars to cartels and people traffickers for a chance to get decent-paying work.
One migrant this month told Nikkei Asia that China's property bubble had burst and once well-paid jobs selling condos had 'dried up.'
'My monthly pay decreased to 2,000 from 3,000 yuan [$278 to $417], which wasn't enough to live on,' said the migrant.
The latest in what's been a series of groups of Chinese migrants arriving at the southern border between the United States and Mexico appeared near California on Monday
The Times spoke with several other migrants in December, who claimed they were fleeing the authoritarian government of Xi Jinping, whom President Biden has called a dictator.
'The largest reason for me is the political environment,' Mark Xu, 35, who teaches elementary and middle school English in China but is now in Colombia attempting to migrate north.
He added that Xi's Covid polices were making it 'harder to breathe' back home.
Gloria Chavez, chief patrol agent for the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector, told the Homeland Security Committee in June that the massive surge in Chinese migrants forced her agents to enlist a translation service, with each Chinese national taking up to seven hours to interview.
US Government data has revealed that more illegal Chinese migrants were granted asylum in the over the past three years than any other nationality.
In 2022, Chinese nationals accounted for 14 per cent of all successful 'defensive' asylum claims.
These claims are so-called because they are made by those defending themselves from deportation proceedings, so would include migrants who have crossed the border illegally.
China also tops the table for all types of successful asylum claims, with 13 per cent of all approved applications.
That is despite the Chinese being responsible for just 1 per cent of all border encounters that year.
Around two thirds of Chinese asylum claims were successful between 2001 to 2021, the third highest success rate of any country, according to analysis of Immigration Court records by Syracuse University.
Last year, the figure was 55 per cent.
More successful asylum claims in the US are made by Chinese migrants than any other nationality, according to government data
Texas has bused more than 105,000 migrants to so-called sanctuary cities since 2022
However, the Chinese newcomers are a far cry from the destitute and desperate Latin American migrants who first began flooding over the border in 2021.
Many of these Asian migrants carried expensive luggage and were dressed fashionably-- in stark contrast to the South American migrants who have often spent months walking and have sold every possession they own to make the journey north to America.
'I left China and went to Taiwan; from there, Turkey, Ecuador and then plane to Mexico,' said another Chinese woman who didn't want her name or picture shown.
She said she was embarrassed for people back home to see her traveling this way.
By contrast, it's common to see Spanish-speaking migrants who risked life and limb to make it the border break down in tears when they reach the US, not feel ashamed for their countrymen to see them entering the US through the asylum process.
Most asylum-seekers from Spanish-speaking countries arrive without a penny to their name, and often don't have money to purchase airfare or a bus ticket to their final destination city.
